m 


ESSAYS 


BY 


RALPH    WALDO    EMERSON 


FIRST  SERIES 


NEW  YORK 

T.    Y.    CROWELL   &   COMPANY 
46  EAST  FOURTEENTH  STREET 


CONTENTS. 


ESSAY   I. 

PAGE 

HISTORY i 


ESSAY  II. 
SELF-RELIANCE 32 

ESSAY   III. 
COMPENSATION 69 

ESSAY   IV. 
SPIRITUAL  LAWS 96 

ESSAY  V. 
LOVE          .        . 125 

ESSAY  VI. 
FRIENDSHIP 142 

ESSAY  VII. 
PRUDENCE 163 

•  iii 


IV  CONTENTS. 

ESSAY   VIII. 

PAGE 

HEROISM 179 

ESSAY  IX. 
THE  OVER-SOUL 195 

ESSAY  X. 
CIRCLES     .........  220 

ESSAY  XI. 
INTELLECT 237 

ESSAY  XII. 
ART 255 


ESSAY    I. 

HISTORY. 

There  is  no  great  and  no  small 
To  the  Soul  that  maketh  all : 
And  where  it  cometh,  all  things  are ; 
And  it  cometh  everywhere. 


I  am  owner  of  the  sphere, 

Of  the  seven  stars  and  the  solar  year, 

Of  Caesar's  hand,  and  Plato's  brain, 

Of  Lord  Christ's  heart,  and  Shakspeare's  strain. 

THERE  is  one  mind  common  to  all  individual  men. 
Every  man  is  an  inlet  to  the  same  and  to  all  of  the 
same.  He  that  is  once  admitted  to  the  right  of  rea 
son  is  made  a  freeman  of  the  whole  estate.  What 
Plato  has  thought,  he  may  think ;  what  a  saint  has 
felt,  he  may  feel ;  what  at  any  time  has  befallen  any 
man,  he  can  understand.  Who  hath  access  to  this 
universal  mind  is  a  party  to  all  that  is  or  can  be  done, 
for  this  is  the  only  and  sovereign  agent. 

Of  the  works  of  this  mind  history  is  the  record.  Its 
genius  is  illustrated  by  the  entire  series  of  days.  Man 
is  explicable  by  nothing  less  than  all  his  history. 
Without  hurry,  without  rest,  the  human  spirit  goes 
forth  from  the  beginning  to  embody  every  faculty, 
every  thought,  every  emotion  which  belongs  to  it,  in 


2  HISTORY. 

appropriate  events.  But  always  the  thought  is  prior 
to  the  fact ;  all  the  facts  of  history  preexist  in  the 
mind  as  laws.  Each  law  in  turn  is  made  by  circum 
stances  predominant,  and  the  limits  of  nature  give 
power  to  but  one  at  a  time.  A  man  is  the  whole  en 
cyclopaedia  of  facts.  The  creation  of  a  thousand  for 
ests  is  in  one  acorn,  and  Egypt,  Greece,  Rome,  Gaul, 
Britain,  America,  lie  folded  already  in  the  first  man. 
Epoch  after  epoch,  camp,  kingdom,  empire,  republic, 
democracy,  are  merely  the  application  of  his  manifold 
spirit  to  the  manifold  world. 

This  human  mind  wrote  history,  and  this  must 
read  it.  The  Sphinx  must  solve  her  own  riddle. 
If  the  whole  of  history  is  in  one  man,  it  is  all  to  be 
explained  from  individual  experience.  There  is  a  re 
lation  between  the  hours  of  our  life  and  the  centuries 
of  time.  As  the  air  I  breathe  is  drawn  from  the  great 
repositories  of  nature,  as  the  light  on  my  book  is 
yielded  by  a  star  a  hundred  millions  of  miles  distant, 
as  the  poise  of  my  body  depends  on  the  equilibrium 
of  centrifugal  and  centripetal  forces,  so  the  hours 
should  be  instructed  by  the  ages  and  the  ages  ex 
plained  by  the  hours.  Of  the  universal  mind  each 
individual  man  is  one  more  incarnation.  All  its 
properties  consist  in  him.  Every  step  in  his  private 
experience  flashes  a  light  on  what  great  bodies  of 
men  have  done,  and  the  crises  of  his  life  refer  to  na 
tional  crises.  Every  revolution  was  first  a  thought  in 
one  man's  mind,  and  when  the  same  thought  occurs 
to  another  man,  it  is  the  key  to  that  era.  Every  re 
form  was  once  a  private  opinion,  and  when  it  shall  be 
a  private  opinion  again  it  will  solve  the  problem  of 


HISTORY.  3 

the  age.  The  fact  narrated  must  correspond  to 
something  in  me  to  be  credible  or  intelligible.  We, 
as  we  read,  must  become  Greeks,  Romans,  Turks, 
priest  and  king,  martyr  and  executioner  ;  must  fasten 
these  images  to  some  reality  in  our  secret  experience, 
or  we  shall  see  nothing,  learn  nothing,  keep  nothing. 
What  befell  Asdrubal  or  Caesar  Borgia  is  as  much  an 
illustration  of  the  mind's  powers  and  depravations  as 
what  has  befallen  us.  Each  new  law  and  political 
movement  has  meaning  for  you.  Stand  before  each 
of  its  tablets  and  say,  * '  Here  is  one  of  my  coverings ; 
under  this  fantastic,  or  odious,  or  graceful  mask  did 
my  Proteus  nature  hide  itself."  This  remedies  the 
defect  of  our  too  great  nearness  to  ourselves.  This 
throws  our  own  actions  into  perspective ;  and  as 
crabs,  goats,  scorpions,  the  balance  and  the  water- 
pot  lose  all  their  meanness  when  hung  as  signs  in 
the  zodiac,  so  I  can  see  my  own  vices  without  heat 
in  the  distant  persons  of  Solomon,  Alcibiades,  and 
Catiline. 

It  is  the  universal  nature  which  gives  worth  to 
particular  men  and  things.  Human  life,  as  contain 
ing  this,  is  mysterious  and  inviolable,  and  we  hedge 
it  round  with  penalties  and  laws.  All  laws  derive 
hence  their  ultimate  reason ;  all  express  at  last  rev 
erence  for  some  command  of  this  supreme,  illimitable 
essence.  Property  also  holds  of  the  soul,  covers 
great  spiritual  facts,  and  instinctively  we  at  first  hold 
to  it  with  swords  and  laws  and  wide  and  complex 
combinations.  The  obscure  consciousness  of  this 
fact  is  the  light  of  all  our  day,  the  claim  of  claims ; 
the  plea  for  education,  for  justice,  for  charity ;  the 


4  HISTORY. 

foundation  of  friendship  and  love  and  of  the  heroism 
and  grandeur  which  belong  to  acts  of  self-reliance.  It 
is  remarkable  that  involuntarily  we  always  read  as 
superior  beings.  Universal  history,  the  poets,  the 
romancers,  do  not  in  their  stateliest  pictures,  —  in  the 
sacerdotal,  the  imperial  palaces,  in  the  triumphs  of 
will  or  of  genius,  —  anywhere  lose  our  ear,  anywhere 
make  us  feel  that  we  intrude,  that  this  is  for  our  bet 
ters  ;  but  rather  is  it  true  that  in  their  grandest 
strokes  we  feel  most  at  home.  All  that  Shakspeare 
says  of  the  king,  yonder  slip  of  a  boy  that  reads  in 
the  corner  feels  to  be  true  of  himself.  We  sympa 
thize  in  the  great  moments  of  history,  in  the  great 
discoveries,  the  great  resistances,  the  great  prosperi 
ties  of  men ;  —  because  there  law  was  enacted, 
the  sea  was  searched,  the  land  was  found,  or  the  blow 
was  struck,  for  us,  as  we  ourselves  in  that  place  would 
have  done  or  applauded. 

So  is  it  in  respect  to  condition  and  character.  We 
honor  the  rich  because  they  have  externally  the  free 
dom,  power,  and  grace  which  we  feel  to  be  proper  to 
man,  proper  to  us.  So  all  that  is  said  of  the  wise 
man  by  stoic  or  oriental  or  modern  essayist,  de 
scribes  to  each  reader  his  own  idea,  describes  his 
unattained  but  attainable  self.  All  literature  writes 
the  character  of  the  wise  man.  All  books,  monu 
ments,  pictures,  conversation,  are  portraits  in  which 
he  finds  the  lineaments  he  is  forming.  The  silent 
and  the  loud  praise  him  and  accost  him,  and  he  is 
stimulated  wherever  he  moves,  as  by  personal  allu 
sions.  A  wise  and  good  soul  therefore  never  needs 
look  for  allusions  personal  and  laudatory  in  discourse. 


HISTORY.  5 

He  hears  the  commendation,  not  of  himself,  but, 
more  sweet,  of  that  character  he  seeks,  in  every  word 
that  is  said  concerning  character,  yea  further  in  every 
fact  that  befalls,  — in  the  running  river  and  the  rus 
tling  corn.  Praise  is  looked,  homage  tendered,  love 
flows,  from  mute  nature,  from  the  mountains  and  the 
lights  of  the  firmament. 

These  hints,  dropped  as  it  were  from  sleep  and 
night,  let  us  use  in  broad  day.  The  student  is  to 
read  history  actively  and  not  passively ;  to  esteem  his 
own  life  the  text,  and  books  the  commentary.  Thus 
compelled,  the  muse  of  history  will  utter  oracles,  as 
never  to  those  who  do  not  respect  themselves.  I 
have  no  expectation  that  any  man  will  read  history 
aright  who  thinks  that  what  was  done  in  a  remote  age, 
by  men  whose  names  have  resounded  far,  has  any 
deeper  sense  than  what  he  is  doing  to-day. 

The  world  exists  for  the  education  of  each  man. 
There  is  no  age  or  state  of  society  or  mode  of  action 
in  history  to  which  there  is  not  somewhat  correspond 
ing  in  his  life.  Every  thing  tends  in  a  wonderful 
manner  to  abbreviate  itself  and  yield  its  whole  virtue 
to  him.  He  should  see  that  he  can  live  all  history  in 
his  own  person.  He  must  sit  at  home  with  might 
and  main  and  not  suffer  himself  to  be  bullied  by 
kings  or  empires,  but  know  that  he  is  greater  than 
all  the  geography  and  all  the  government  of  the 
world ;  he  must  transfer  the  point  of  view  from  which 
history  is  commonly  read,  from  Rome  and  Athens 
and  London,  to  himself,  and  not  deny  his  conviction 
that  he  is  the  Court,  and  if  England  or  Egypt  have 
any  thing  to  say  to  him  he  will  try  the  case ;  if  not, 


6  HISTORY. 

let  them  forever  be  silent.  He  must  attain  and  main 
tain  that  lofty  sight  where  facts  yield  their  secret 
sense,  and  poetry  and  annals  are  alike.  The  instinct 
of  the  mind,  the  purpose  of  nature,  betrays  itself  in 
the  use  we  make  of  the  signal  narrations  of  history. 
Time  dissipates  to  shining  ether  the  solid  angularity 
of  facts.  No  anchor,  no  cable,  no  fences  avail  to  keep 
a  fact  a  fact.  Babylon  and  Troy,  and  Tyre,  and  even 
early  Rome  are  passing  already  into  fiction.  The 
Garden  of  Eden,  the  Sun  standing  still  in  Gibeon,  is 
poetry  thenceforward  to  all  nations.  Who  cares  what 
the  fact  was,  when  we  have  thus  made  a  constellation 
of  it  to  hang  in  heaven  an  immortal  sign  ?  London 
and  Paris  and  New  York  must  go  the  same  way. 
"What  is  history,"  said  Napoleon,  "  but  a  fable 
agreed  upon  ?  "  This  life  of  ours  is  stuck  round  with 
Egypt,  Greece,  Gaul,  England,  War,  Colonization, 
Church,  Court  and  Commerce,  as  with  so  many 
flowers  and  wild  ornaments  grave  and  gay.  I  will 
not  make  more  account  of  them.  I  believe  in  Eter 
nity.  I  can  find  Greece,  Palestine,  Italy,  Spain  and 
the  Islands,  —  the  genius  and  creative  principle  of 
each  and  of  all  eras,  in  my  own  mind. 

We  are  always  coming  up  with  the  facts  that  have 
moved  us  in  history  in  our  private  experience  and 
verifying  them  here.  All  history  becomes  subjective  ; 
in  other  words  there  is  properly  no  History,  only 
Biography.  Every  mind  must  know  the  whole  lesson 
for  itself,  —  must  go  over  the  whole  ground.  What 
it  does  not  see,  what  it  does  not  live,  it  will  not  know. 
What  the  former  age  has  epitomized  into  a  formula  or 
rule  for  manipular  convenience,  it  will  lose  all  the  good 


HISTORY.  7 

of  verifying  for  itself,  by  means  of  the  wall  of  that  rule. 
Somewhere  or  other,  some  time  or  other,  it  will  de 
mand  and  find  compensation  for  that  loss,  by  doing 
the  work  itself.  Ferguson  discovered  many  things  in 
astronomy  which  had  long  been  known.  The  better 
for  him. 

History  must  be  this  or  it  is  nothing.  Every  law 
which  the  state  enacts  indicates  a  fact  in  human 
nature  ;  that  is  all.  We  must  in  our  own  nature  see 
the  necessary  reason  for  every  fact,  —  see  how  it 
could  and  must  be.  So  stand  before  every  public 
every  private  work ;  before  an  oration  of  Burke,  be 
fore  a  victory  of  Napoleon,  before  a  martyrdom  of 
Sir  Thomas  More,  of  Sidney,  of  Marmaduke  Robin 
son  ;  before  a  French  Reign  of  Terror,  and  a  Salem 
hanging  of  witches ;  before  a  fanatic  Revival  and  the 
Animal  Magnetism  in  Paris,  or  in  Providence.  We 
assume  that  we  under  like  influence  should  be  alike 
affected,  and  should  achieve  the  like ;  and  we  aim  to 
master  intellectually  the  steps  and  reach  the  same 
height  or  the  same  degradation  that  our  fellow,  our 
proxy  has  done. 

All  inquiry  into  antiquity,  —  all  curiosity  respecting 
the  pyramids,  the  excavated  cities,  Stonehenge,  the 
Ohio  Circles,  Mexico,  Memphis,  is  the  desire  to  do 
away  this  wild,  savage,  and  preposterous  There  or 
Then,  and  introduce  in  its  place  the  Here  and  the  Now. 
It  is  to  banish  the  not  me  and  supply  the  me.  It  is  to 
abolish  difference  and  restore  unity.  Belzoni  digs 
and  measures  in  the  mummy-pits  and  pyramids  of 
Thebes  until  he  can  see  the  end  of  the  difference 
between  the  monstrous  work  and  himself.  When  he 


8  HISTORY. 

has  satisfied  himself,  in  general  and  in  detail,  that  it 
was  made  by  such  a  person  as  himself,  so  armed  and 
so  motived,  and  to  ends  to  which  he  himself  in  given 
circumstances  should  also  have  worked,  the  problem 
is  solved ;  his  thought  lives  along  the  whole  line  of 
temples  and  sphinxes  and  catacombs,  passes  through 
them  all  like  a  creative  soul  with  satisfaction,  and  they 
live  again  to  the  mind,  or  are  now. 

A  Gothic  cathedral  affirms  that  it  was  done  by  us 
and  not  done  by  us.  Surely  it  was  by  man,  but  we 
find  it  not  in  our  man.  But  we  apply  ourselves  to 
the  history  of  its  production.  We  put  ourselves  into 
the  place  and  historical  state  of  the  builder.  We 
remember  the  forest  dwellers,  the  first  temples,  the 
adherence  to  the  first  type,  and  the  decoration  of  it  as 
the  wealth  of  the  nation  increased ;  the  value  which 
is  given  to  wood  by  carving  led  to  the  carving  over 
the  whole  mountain  of  stone  of  a  cathedral.  When 
we  have  gone  through  this  process,  and  added  thereto 
the  Catholic  Church,  its  cross,  its  music,  its  proces 
sions,  its  Saints'  days  and  image-worship,  we  have  as 
it  were  been  the  man  that  made  the  minster;  we 
have  seen  how  it  could  and  must  be.  We  have  the 
sufficient  reason. 

The  difference  between  men  is  in  their  principle  of 
association.  Some  men  classify  objects  by  color  and 
size  and  other  accidents  of  appearance  ;  others  by  in 
trinsic  likeness,  or  by  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect. 
The  progress  of  the  intellect  consists  in  the  clearer 
vision  of  causes,  which  overlooks  surface  differences. 
To  the  poet,  to  the  philosopher,  to  the  saint,  all 
things  are  friendly  and  sacred,  all  events  profitable, 


HISTORY.  9 

all  days  holy,  all  men  divine.  For  the  eye  is  fastened 
on  the  life,  and  slights  the  circumstance.  Every 
chemical  substance,  every  plant,  every  animal  in  its 
growth,  teaches  the  unity  of  cause,  the  variety  of  ap 
pearance. 

Why,  being  as  we  are,  surrounded  by  this  all-creat 
ing  nature,  soft  and  fluid  as  a  cloud  or  the  air,  should 
we  be  such  hard  pedants,  and  magnify  a  few  forms  ? 
Why  should  we  make  account  of  time,  or  of  magni 
tude,  or  of  figure?  The  soul  knows  them  not,  and 
genius,  obeying  its  law,  knows  how  to  play  with  them 
as  a  young  child  plays  with  greybeards  and  in 
churches.  Genius  studies  the  causal  thought,  and 
far  back  in  the  womb  of  things  sees  the  rays  parting 
from  one  orb,  that  diverge,  ere  they  fall,  by  infinite 
diameters.  Genius  watches  the  monad  through  all 
his  masks  as  he  performs  the  metempsychosis  of 
nature.  Genius  detects  through  the  fly,  through  the 
caterpillar,  through  the  grub,  through  the  egg,  the 
constant  type  of  the  individual  ;  through  countless 
individuals  the  fixed  species ;  through  many  species 
the  genus ;  through  all  genera  the  steadfast  type ; 
through  all  the  kingdoms  of  organized  life  the  eternal 
unity.  Nature  is  a  mutable  cloud  which  is  always 
and  never  the  same.  She  casts  the  same  thought 
into  troops  of  forms,  as  a  poet  makes  twenty  fables 
with  one  moral.  Beautifully  shines  a  spirit  through 
the  bruteness  and  toughness  of  matter.  Alone  om 
nipotent,  it  converts  all  things  to  its  own  end.  The 
adamant  streams  into  softest  but  precise  form  before 
it,  but  whilst  I  look  at  it  its  outline  and  texture  are 
changed  altogether.  Nothing  is  so  fleeting  as  form. 


10  HISTORY. 

Yet  never  does  it  quite  deny  itself.  In  man  we  still 
trace  the  rudiments  or  hints  of  all  that  we  esteem 
badges  of  servitude  in  the  lower  races ;  yet  in  him 
they  enhance  his  nobleness  and  grace ;  as  lo,  in 
^schylus,  transformed  to  a  cow,  offends  the  imagina 
tion,  but  how  changed  when  as  Isis  in  Egypt  she 
meets  Jove,  a  beautiful  woman  with  nothing  of  the 
metamorphosis  left  but  the  lunar  horns  as  the  splendid 
ornament  of  her  brows. 

The  identity  of  history  is  equally  intrinsic,  the 
diversity  equally  obvious.  There  is,  at  the  surface, 
infinite  variety  of  things ;  at  the  centre  there  is  sim 
plicity  and  unity  of  cause.  How  many  are  the  acts 
of  one  man  in  which  we  recognize  the  same  character. 
See  the  variety  of  the  sources  of  our  information  in 
respect  to  the  Greek  genius.  Thus  at  first  we  have 
the  civil  history  of  that  people,  as  Herodotus,  Thu- 
cydides,  Xenophon,  Plutarch  have  given  it  —  a  very 
sufficient  account  of  what  manner  of  persons  they 
were  and  what  they  did.  Then  we  have  the  same 
soul  expressed  for  us  again  in  their  literature;  in 
poems,  drama,  and  philosophy:  a  very  complete 
form.  Then  we  have  it  once  more  in  their  archi 
tecture —  the  purest  sensuous  beauty  —  the  perfect 
medium  never  over-stepping  the  limit  of  charming 
propriety  and  grace.  Then  we  have  it  once  more  in 
sculpture,  —  the  "tongue  on  the  balance  of  expres 
sion,"  those  forms  in  every  action  at  every  age  of  life, 
ranging  through  all  the  scale  of  condition,  from  god 
to  beast,  and  never  transgressing  the  ideal  serenity, 
but  in  convulsive  exertion,  the  liege  of  order  and  of 
law.  Thus,  of  the  genius  of  one  remarkable  people 


HISTORY.  ii 

we  have  a  fourfold  representation  —  the  most  various 
expression  of  one  moral  thing :  and  to  the  senses 
what  more  unlike  than  an  ode  of  Pindar,  a  marble 
Centaur,  the  peristyle  of  the  Parthenon,  and  the  last 
actions  of  Phocion?  Yet  do  these  varied  external 
expressions  proceed  from  one  national  mind. 

Every  one  must  have  observed  faces  and  forms 
which,  without  any  resembling  feature,  make  a  like 
impression  on  the  beholder.  A  particular  picture  or 
copy  of  verses,  if  it  do  not  awaken  the  same  train  of 
images,  will  yet  superinduce  the  same  sentiment  as 
some  wild  mountain  walk,  although  the  resemblance 
is  nowise  obvious  to  the  senses,  but  is  occult  and  out 
of  the  reach  of  the  understanding.  Nature  is  an  end 
less  combination  and  repetition  of  a  very  few  laws. 
She  hums  the  old  well  known  air  through  innumer 
able  variations. 

Nature  is  full  of  a  sublime  family  likeness  through 
out  her  works.  She  delights  in  startling  us  with  re 
semblances  in  the  most  unexpected  quarters.  I  have 
seen  the  head  of  an  old  sachem  of  the  forest  which  at 
once  reminded  the  eye  of  a  bald  mountain  summit, 
and  the  furrows  of  the  brow  suggested  the  strata  of 
the  rock.  There  are  men  whose  manners  have  the 
same  essential  splendor  as  the  simple  and  awful  sculp 
ture  on  the  friezes  of  the  Parthenon  and  the  remains 
of  the  earliest  Greek  art.  And  there  are  composi 
tions  of  the  same  strain  to  be  found  in  the  books  of 
all  ages.  What  is  Guide's  Rospigliosi  Aurora  but  a 
morning  thought,  as  the  horses  in  it  are  only  a  morn 
ing  cloud.  If  any  one  will  but  take  pains  to  observe 
the  variety  of  actions  to  which  he  is  equally  inclined 


12  HISTORY. 

in  certain  moods  of  mind,  and  those  to  which  he  is 
averse,  he  will  see  how  deep  is  the  chain  of  affinity. 

A  painter  told  me  that  nobody  could  draw  a  tree 
without  in  some  sort  becoming  a  tree ;  or  draw  a 
child  by  studying  the  outlines  of  its  form  merely, 
—  but,  by  watching  for  a  time  his  motions  and  plays, 
the  painter  enters  into  his  nature  and  can  then  draw 
him  at  will  in  every  attitude.  So  Roos  "  entered  into 
the  inmost  nature  of  a  sheep."  I  knew  a  draughts 
man  employed  in  a  public  survey  who  found  that  he 
could  not  sketch  the  rocks  until  their  geological  struc 
ture  was  first  explained  to  him. 

What  is  to  be  inferred  from  these  facts  but  this : 
that  in  a  certain  state  of  thought  is  the  common  ori 
gin  of  very  diverse  works?  It  is  the  spirit  and  not 
the  fact  that  is  identical.  By  descending  far  down 
into  the  depths  of  the  soul,  and  not  primarily  by  a 
painful  acquisition  of  many  manual  skills,  the  artist 
attains  the  power  of  awakening  other  souls  to  a  given 
activity. 

It  has  been  said  that  "common  souls  pay  with 
what  they  do,  nobler  souls  with  that  which  they  are." 
And  why?  Because  a  soul  living  from  a  great  depth 
of  being,  awakens  in  us  by  its  actions  and  words,  by 
its  very  looks  and  manners,  the  same  power  and 
beauty  that  a  gallery  of  sculpture  or  of  pictures  are 
wont  to  animate. 

Civil  history,  natural  history,  the  history  of  art  and 
the  history  of  literature,  —  all  must  be  explained  from 
individual  history,  or  must  remain  words.  There  is 
nothing  but  is  related  to  us,  nothing  that  does  not 
interest  us,  —  kingdom,  college,  tree,  horse,  or  iron 


HISTORY.  13 

shoe,  the  roots  of  all  things  are  in  man.  It  is  in  the 
soul  that  architecture  exists.  Santa  Croce  and  the 
Dome  of  St.  Peter's  are  lame  copies  after  a  divine 
model.  Strasburg  Cathedral  is  a  material  counter 
part  of  the  soul  of  Erwin  of  Steinbach.  The  true 
poem  is  the  poet's  mind ;  the  true  ship  is  the  ship 
builder.  In  the  man,  could  we  lay  him  open,  we 
should  see  the  reason  for  the  last  flourish  and  tendril 
of  his  work,  as  every  spine  and  tint  in  the  sea-shell 
preexist  in  the  secreting  organs  of  the  fish.  The 
whole  of  heraldry  and  of  chivalry  is  in  courtesy.  A 
man  of  fine  manners  shall  pronounce  your  name  with 
all  the  ornament  that  titles  of  nobility  could  ever 
add. 

The  trivial  experience  of  every  day  is  always  veri 
fying  some  old  prediction  to  us  and  converting  into 
things  for  us  also  the  words  and  signs  which  we  had 
heard  and  seen  without  heed.  Let  me  add  a  few  ex 
amples,  such  as  fall  within  the  scope  of  every  man's 
observation,  of  trivial  facts  which  go  to  illustrate 
grea't  and  conspicuous  facts. 

A  lady  with  whom  I  was  riding  in  the  forest  said  to 
me  that  the  woods  always  seemed  to  her  to  wait,  as 
if  the  genii  who  inhabited  them  suspended  their 
deeds  until  the  wayfarer  had  passed  onward.  This  is 
precisely  the  thought  which  poetry  has  celebrated  in 
the  dance  of  the  fairies,  which  breaks  off  on  the  ap 
proach  of  human  feet.  The  man  who  has  seen  the 
rising  moon  break  out  of  the  clouds  at  midnight,  has 
been  present  like  an  archangel  at  the  creation  of 
light  and  of  the  world.  I  remember  that  being 
abroad  one  summer  day  in  the  fields,  my  companion 


14  HISTORY. 

pointed  out  to  me  a  broad  cloud,  which  might  extend 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  parallel  to  the  horizon,  quite  ac 
curately  in  the  form  of  a  cherub  as  painted  over 
churches,  —  a  round  block  in  the  centre,  which  it  was 
easy  to  animate  with  eyes  and  mouth,  supported  on 
either  side  by  wide  stretched  symmetrical  wings. 
What  appears  once  in  the  atmosphere  may  appear 
often,  and  it  was  undoubtedly  the  archetype  of  that 
familiar  ornament.  I  have  seen  in  the  sky  a  chain  of 
summer  lightning  which  at  once  revealed  to  me  that 
the  Greeks  drew  from  nature  when  they  painted  the 
thunderbolt  in  the  hand  of  Jove.  I  have  seen  a  snow 
drift  along  the  sides  of  the  stone  wall  which  obviously 
gave  the  idea  of  the  common  architectural  scroll  to 
abut  a  tower. 

By  simply  throwing  ourselves  into  new  circumstan 
ces  we  do  continually  invent  anew  the  orders  and  the 
ornaments  of  architecture,  as  we  see  how  each  people 
merely  decorated  its  primitive  abodes.  The  Doric 
temple  still  presents  the  semblance  of  the  wooden 
cabin  in  which  the  Dorian  dwelt.  The  Chinese  pagoda 
is  plainly  a  Tartar  tent.  The  Indian  and  Egyptian 
temples  still  betray  the  mounds  and  subterranean 
houses  of  their  forefathers.  "  The  custom  of  making 
houses  and  tombs  in  the  living  rock  "  (says  Heeren 
in  his  Researches  on  the  Ethiopians),  "determined 
very  naturally  the  principal  character  of  the  Nubian 
Egyptian  architecture  to  the  colossal  form  which  it 
assumed.  In  these  caverns  already  prepared  by  nature, 
the  eye  was  accustomed  to  dwell  on  huge  shapes  and 
masses,  so  that  when  art  came  to  the  assistance  of 
nature  it  could  not  move  on  a  small  scale  without  de- 


HISTORY.  15 

grading  itself.  What  would  statues  of  the  usual  size, 
or  neat  porches  and  wings  have  been,  associated  with 
those  gigantic  halls  before  which  only  Colossi  could  sit 
as  watchmen  or  lean  on  the  pillars  of  the  interior?" 

The  Gothic  church  plainly  originated  in  a  rude 
adaptation  of  the  forest  trees,  with  all  their  boughs, 
to  a  festal  or  solemn  arcade ;  as  the  bands  about  the 
cleft  pillars  still  indicate  the  green  withes  that  tied 
them.  No  one  can  walk  in  a  road  cut  through  pine 
woods,  without  being  struck  with  the  architectural 
appearance  of  the  grove,  especially  in  winter,  when 
the  barrenness  of  all  other  trees  shows  the  low  arch 
of  the  Saxons.  In  the  woods  in  a  winter  afternoon 
one  will  see  as  readily  the  origin  of  the  stained 
glass  window,  with  which  the  Gothic  cathedrals  are 
adorned,  in  the  colors  of  the  western  sky  seen  through 
the  bare  and  crossing  branches  of  the  forest.  Nor 
can  any  lover  of  nature  enter  the  old  piles  of  Oxford 
and  the  English  cathedrals,  without  feeling  that  the 
forest  overpowered  the  mind  of  the  builder,  and  that 
his  -chisel,  his  saw  and  plane  still  reproduced  its 
ferns,  its  spikes  of  flowers,  its  locust,  its  pine,  its 
oak,  its  fir,  its  spruce. 

The  Gothic  cathedral  is  a  blossoming  in  stone  sub 
dued  by  the  insatiable  demand  of  harmony  in  man. 
The  mountain  of  granite  blooms  into  an  eternal 
flower,  with  the  lightness  and  delicate  finish  as  well 
as  the  aerial  proportions  and  perspective  of  vegetable 
beauty. 

In  like  manner  all  public  facts  are  to  be  indi 
vidualized,  all  private  facts  are  to  be  generalized. 
Then  at  once  History  becomes  fluid  and  true,  and 


1 6  HISTORY. 

Biography  deep  and  sublime.  As  the  Persian  imi 
tated  in  the  slender  shafts  and  capitals  of  his  archi 
tecture  the  stem  and  flower  of  the  lotus  and  palm,  so 
the  Persian  court  in  its  magnificent  era  never  gave 
over  the  Nomadism  of  its  barbarous  tribes,  but 
travelled  from  Ecbatana,  where  the  spring  was  spent, 
to  Susa  in  summer  and  to 'Babylon  for  the  winter. 

In  the  early  history  of  Asia  and  Africa,  Nomadism 
and  Agriculture  are  the  two  antagonist  facts.  The 
geography  of  Asia  and  of  Africa  necessitated  a 
nomadic  life.  But  the  nomads  were  the  terror  of  all 
those  whom  the  soil  or  the  advantages  of  a  market 
had  induced  to  build  towns.  Agriculture  therefore 
was  a  religious  injunction,  because  of  the  perils  of  the 
state  from  nomadism.  And  in  these  late  and  civil  coun 
tries  of  England  and  America  the  contest  of  these  pro 
pensities  still  fights  oat  the  old  battle  in  each  individual. 
We  are  all  rovers  and  all  fixtures  by  turns,  and  pretty 
rapid  turns.  The  nomads  of  Africa  are  constrained 
to  wander,  by  the  attacks  of  the  gad-fly,  which  drives 
the  cattle  mad,  and  so  compels  the  tribe  to  emigrate 
in  the  rainy  season  and  drive  off  the  cattle  to  the 
higher  sandy  regions.  The  nomads  of  Asia  follow 
the  pasturage  from  month  to  month.  In  America 
and  Europe  the  nomadism  is  of  trade  and  curiosity. 
A  progress  certainly,  from  the  gad-fly  of  Astaboras  to 
the  Anglo  and  Italo-mania  of  Boston  Bay.  The  dif 
ference  between  men  in  this  respect  is  the  faculty  of 
rapid  domestication,  the  power  to  find  his  chair  and 
bed  everywhere,  which  one  man  has  and  another  has 
not.  Some  men  have  so  much  of  the  Indian  left, 
have  constitutionally  such  habits  of  accommodation 


HISTORY.  17 

that  at  sea,  or  in  the  forest,  or  in  the  snow,  they 
sleep  as  warm,  and  dine  with  as  good  appetite,  and 
associate  as  happily  as  in  their  own  house.  And  to 
push  this  old  fact  still  one  degree  nearer,  we  may 
find  it  a  representative  of  a  permanent  fact  in  human 
nature.  The  intellectual  nomadism  is  the  faculty  of 
objectiveness  or  of  eyes  which  everywhere  feed  them 
selves.  Who  hath  such  eyes,  everywhere  falls  into 
easy  relations  with  his  fellow-men.  Every  man, 
every  thing  is  a  prize,  a  study,  a  property  to  him,  and 
this  love  smooths  his  brow,  joins  him  to  men,  and 
makes  him  beautiful  and  beloved  in  their  sight.  His 
house  is  a  wagon ;  he  roams  through  all  latitudes  as 
easily  as  a  Calmuc. 

Every  thing  the  individual  sees  without  him  cor 
responds  to  his  states  of  mind,  and  every  thing  is  in 
turn  intelligible  to  him,  as  his  onward  thinking  leads 
him  into  the  truth  to  which  that  fact  or  series  be 
longs. 

The  primeval  world,  the  Fore-World,  as  the  Ger 
mans  say,  I  can  dive  to  it  in  myself  as  well  as  grope  for 
it  with  researching  fingers  in  catacombs,  libraries, 
and  the  broken  reliefs  and  torsos  of  ruined  villas. 

What  is  the  foundation  of  that  interest  all  men 
feel  in  Greek  history,  letters,  art  and  poetry,  in  all  its 
periods  from  the  Heroic  or  Homeric  age  down  to  the 
domestic  life  of  the  Athenians  and  Spartans,  four  or 
five  centuries  later?  This  period  draws  us  because 
we  are  Greeks.  It  is  a  state  through  which  every 
man  in  some  sort  passes.  The  Grecian  state  is  the 
era  of  the  bodily  nature,  the  perfection  of  the  senses, 
—  of  the  spiritual  nature  unfolded  in  strict  unity  with 


1 8  HISTORY. 

the  body.  In  it  existed  those  human  forms  which 
supplied  the  sculptor  with  his  models  of  Hercules, 
Phoebus,  and  Jove ;  not  like  the  forms  abounding  in 
the  streets  of  modern  cities,  wherein  the  face  is  a 
confused  blur  of  features,  but  composed  of  incorrupt, 
sharply  defined  and  symmetrical  features,  whose  eye- 
sockets  are  so  formed  that  it  would  be  impossible 
for  such  eyes  to  squint  and  take  furtive  glances  on 
this  side  and  on  that,  but  they  must  turn  the  whole 
head. 

The  manners  of  that  period  are  plain  and  fierce. 
The  reverence  exhibited  is  for  personal  qualities ; 
courage,  address,  self-command,  justice,  strength, 
swiftness,  a  loud  voice,  a  broad  chest.  Luxury  is  not 
known,  nor  elegance.  A  sparse  population  and  want 
make  every  man  his  own  valet,  cook,  butcher  and 
soldier,  and  the  habit  of  supplying  his  own  needs 
educates  the  body  to  wonderful  performances.  Such 
are  the  Agamemnon  and  Diomed  of  Homer,  and  not 
far  different  is  the  picture  Xenophon  gives  of  himself 
and  his  compatriots  in  the  Retreat  of  the  Ten  Thou 
sand.  "  After  the  army  had  crossed  the  river  Tele- 
boas  in  Armenia,  there  fell  much  snow,  and  the 
troops  lay  miserably  on  the  ground  covered  with  it. 
But  Xenophon  arose  naked,  and  taking  an  axe,  began 
to  split  wood ;  whereupon  others  rose  and  did  the 
like."  Throughout  his  army  seemed  to  be  a  bound 
less  liberty  of  speech.  They  quarrel  for  plunder, 
they  wrangle  with  the  generals  on  each  new  order, 
and  Xenophon  is  as  sharp-tongued  as  any  and 
sharper-tongued  than  most,  and  so  gives  as  good  as 
he  gets.  Who  does  not  see  that  this  is  a  gang  of 


HISTORY.  19 

great  boys,  with  such  a  code  of  honor  and  such  lax 
discipline  as  great  boys  have  ? 

The  costly  charm  of  the  ancient  tragedy,  and  in 
deed  of  all  the  old  literature,  is  that  the  persons 
speak  simply,  —  speak  as  persons  who  have  great 
good  sense  without  knowing  it,  before  yet  the  reflec 
tive  habit  has  become  the  predominant  habit  of  the 
mind.  Our  admiration  of  the  antique  is  not  admira 
tion  of  the  old,  but  of  the  natural.  The  Greeks  are 
not  reflective,  but  perfect  in  their  senses,  perfect  in 
their  health,  with  the  finest  physical  organization  in 
the  world.  Adults  acted  with  the  simplicity  and 
grace  of  boys.  They  made  vases,  tragedies  and 
statues,  such  as  healthy  senses  should —  that  is,  in 
good  taste.  Such  things  have  continued  to  be  made 
in  all  ages,  and  are  now,  wherever  a  healthy  physique 
exists ;  but,  as  a  class,  from  their  superior  organiza 
tion,  they  have  surpassed  all.  They  combine  the 
energy  of  manhood  with  the  engaging  unconscious 
ness  of  childhood.  Our  reverence  for  them  is  our 
reverence  for  childhood.  Nobody  can  reflect  upon 
an  unconscious  act  with  regret  or  contempt.  Bard  or 
hero  cannot  look  down  on  the  word  or  gesture  of  a 
child.  It  is  as  great  as  they.  The  attraction  of  these 
manners  is  that  they  belong  to  man,  and  are  known  to 
every  man  in  virtue  of  his  being  once  a  child  ;  besides 
that  there  are  always  individuals  who  retain  these 
characteristics.  A  person  of  childlike  genius  and  in 
born  energy  is  still  a  Greek,  and  revives  our  love  of 
the  Muse  of  Hellas.  A  great  boy,  a  great  girl  with 
good  sense  is  a  Greek.  Beautiful  is  the  love  of 
nature  in  the  Philoctetes.  But  in  reading  those  fine 


20  HISTORY. 

apostrophes  to  sleep,  to  the  stars,  rocks,  mountains, 
and  waves,  I  feel  time  passing  away  as  an  ebbing  sea. 
I  feel  the  eternity  of  man,  the  identity  of  his  thought. 
The  Greek  had  it  seems  the  same  fellow-beings  as  I. 
The  sun  and  moon,  water  and  fire,  met  his  heart 
precisely  as  they  meet  mine.  Then  the  vaunted  dis 
tinction  between  Greek  and  English,  between  Classic 
and  Romantic  schools,  seems  superficial  and  pedan 
tic.  When  a  thought  of  Plato  becomes  a  thought  to 
me,  —  when  a  truth  that  fired  the  soul  of  Pindar  fires 
mine,  time  is  no  more.  When  I  feel  that  we  two 
meet  in  a  perception,  that  our  two  souls  are  tinged 
with  the  same  hue,  and  do  as  it  were  run  into  one, 
why  should  I  measure  degrees  of  latitude,  why  should 
I  count  Egyptian  years? 

The  student  interprets  the  age  of  chivalry  by  his 
own  age  of  chivalry,  and  the  days  of  maritime  ad 
venture  and  circumnavigation  by  quite  parallel  minia 
ture  experiences  of  his  own.  To  the  sacred  history  of 
the  world  he  has  the  same  key.  When  the  voice  of  a 
prophet  out  of  the  deeps  of  antiquity  merely  echoes 
to  him  a  sentiment  of  his  infancy,  a  prayer  of  his 
youth,  he  then  pierces  to  the  truth  through  all  the 
confusion  of  tradition  and  the  caricature  of  institu 
tions. 

Rare,  extravagant  spirits  come  by  us  at  intervals, 
who  disclose  to  us  new  facts  in  nature.  I  see  that 
men  of  God  have  always  from  time  to  time  walked 
among  men  and  made  their  commission  felt  in  the 
heart  and  soul  of  the  commonest  hearer.  Hence 
evidently  the  tripod,  the  priest,  the  priestess  in 
spired  by  the  divine  afflatus. 


HISTORY.  21 

Jesus  astonishes  and  overpowers  sensual  people. 
They  cannot  unite  him  to  history,  or  reconcile  him 
with  themselves.  As  they  come  to  revere  their  in 
tuitions  and  aspire  to  live  holily,  their  own  piety  ex 
plains  every  fact,  every  word. 

How  easily  these  old  worships  of  Moses,  of  Zo 
roaster,  of  Menu,  of  Socrates,  domesticate  themselves 
in  the  mind.  I  cannot  find  any  antiquity  in  them. 
They  are  mine  as  much  as  theirs. 

Then  I  have  seen  the  first  monks  and  anchorets, 
without  crossing  seas  or  centuries.  More  than  once 
some  individual  has  appeared  to  me  with  such  negli 
gence  of  labor  and  such  commanding  contemplation, 
a  haughty  beneficiary  begging  in  the  name  of  God,  as 
made  good  to  the  nineteenth  century  Simeon  the 
Stylite,  the  Thebais,  and  the  first  Capuchins. 

The  priestcraft  of  the  East  and  West,  of  the 
Magian,  Brahmin,  Druid,  and  Inca,  is  expounded  in 
the  individual's  private  life.  The  cramping  influence 
of  a  hard  formalist  on  a  young  child,  in  repressing  his 
spirits  and  courage,  paralyzing  the  understanding, 
and  that  without  producing  indignation,  but  only  fear 
and  obedience,  and  even  much  sympathy  with  the 
tyranny,  —  is  a  familiar  fact,  explained  to  the  child 
when  he  becomes  a  man,  only  by  seeing  that  the  op 
pressor  of  his  youth  is  himself  a  child  tyrannized  over 
by  those  names  and  words  and  forms  of  whose  in 
fluence  he  was  merely  the  organ  to  the  youth.  The 
fact  teaches  him  how  Belus  was  worshipped  and  how 
the  Pyramids  were  built,  better  than  the  discovery  by 
Champollion  of  the  names  of  all  the  workmen  and  the 
cost  of  every  tile.  He  finds  Assyria  and  the  Mounds 


22  HISTORY. 

of  Cholula  at  his  door,  and  himself  has  laid  the 
courses. 

Again,  in  that  protest  which  each  considerate  per 
son  makes  against  the  superstition  of  his  times,  he  re 
peats  step  for  step  the  part  of  old  reformers,  and  in  the 
search  after  truth  finds,  like  them,  new  perils  to 
virtue.  He  learns  again  what  moral  vigor  is  needed 
to  supply  the  girdle  of  a  superstition.  A  great  licen 
tiousness  treads  on  the  heels  of  a  reformation.  How 
many  times  in  the  history  of  the  world  has  the  Luther 
of  the  day  had  to  lament  the  decay  of  piety  in  his 
own  household.  "  Doctor,1'  said  his  wife  to  Martin 
Luther,  one  day,  "  how  is  it  that  whilst  subject  to 
papacy  we  prayed  so  often  and  with  such  fervor, 
whilst  now  we  pray  with  the  utmost  coldness  and 
very  seldom  ?  " 

The  advancing  man  discovers  how  deep  a  property 
he  hath  in  literature,  —  in  all  fable  as  well  as  in  all 
history.  He  finds  that  the  poet  was  no  odd  fellow 
who  described  strange  and  impossible  situations,  but 
that  universal  man  wrote  by  his  pen  a  confession 
true  for  one  and  true  for  all.  His  own  secret  biog 
raphy  he  finds  in  lines  wonderfully  intelligible  to 
him,  dotted  down  before  he  was  born.  One  after 
another  he  comes  up  in  his  private  adventures  with 
every  fable  of  yEsop,  of  Homer,  of  Hafiz,  of  Ariosto, 
of  Chaucer,  of  Scott,  and  verifies  them  with  his  own 
head  and  hands. 

The  beautiful  fables  of  the  Greeks,  being  proper 
creations  of  the  Imagination  and  not  of  the  Fancy, 
are  universal  verities.  What  a  range  of  meanings 
and  what  perpetual  pertinence  has  the  story  of  Pro- 


HISTORY.  23 

metheus !  Beside  its  primary  value  as  the  first 
chapter  of  the  history  of  Europe  (the  mythology 
thinly  veiling  authentic  facts,  the  invention  of  the 
mechanic  arts  and  the  migration  of  colonies),  it  gives 
the  history  of  religion,  with  some  closeness  to  the 
faith  of  later  ages.  Prometheus  is  the  Jesus  of  the 
old  mythology.  He  is  the  friend  of  man ;  stands  be 
tween  the  unjust  *  justice  '  of  the  Eternal  Father  and 
the  race  of  mortals,  and  readily  suffers  all  things  on 
their  account.  But  where  it  departs  from  the  Calvin- 
istic  Christianity  and  exhibits  him  as  the  defier  of 
Jove,  it  represents  a  state  of  mind  which  readily 
appears  wherever  the  doctrine  of  Theism  is  taught  in 
a  crude,  objective  form,  and  which  seems  the  self-de 
fence  of  man  against  this  untruth,  namely,  a  discon 
tent  with  the  believed  fact  that  a  God  exists,  and  a 
feeling  that  the  obligation  of  reverence  is  onerous.  It 
would  steal  if  it  could  the  fire  of  the  Creator,  and  live 
apart  from  him  and  independent  of  him.  The  Prome 
theus  Vinctus  is  the  romance  of  skepticism.  Not  less 
true  to  all  time  are  the  details  of  that  stately  apologue. 
Apollo  kept  the  flocks  of  Admetus,  said  the  poets. 
Every  man  is  a  divinity  in  disguise,  a  god  playing  the 
fool.  It  seems  as  if  heaven  had  sent  its  insane  angels 
into  our  world  as  to  an  asylum,  and  here  they  will 
break  out  in  their  native  music  and  utter  at  intervals 
the  words  they  have  heard  in  heaven  ;  then  the  mad 
fit  returns  and  they  mope  and  wallow  like  dogs. 
When  the  gods  come  among  men,  they  are  not 
known.  Jesus  was  not ;  Socrates  and  Shakspeare 
were  not.  Antaeus  was  suffocated  by  the  gripe  of 
Hercules,  but  every  time  he  touched  his  mother  earth 


24  HISTORY. 

his  strength  was  renewed.  Man  is  the  broken  giant, 
and  in  all  his  weakness  both  his  body  and  his  mind 
are  invigorated  by  habits  of  conversation  with  nature. 
The  power  of  music,  the  power  of  poetry,  to  unfix  and 
as  it  were  clap  wings  to  all  solid  nature,  interprets 
the  riddle  of  Orpheus,  which  was  to  his  childhood  an 
idle  tale.  The  philosophical  perception  of  identity 
through  endless  mutations  of  form  makes  him  know 
the  Proteus.  What  else  am  I  who  laughed  or  wept 
yesterday,  who  slept  last  night  like  a  corpse,  and  this 
morning  stood  and  ran  ?  And  what  see  I  on  any 
side  but  the  transmigrations  of  Proteus?  I  can  sym 
bolize  my  thought  by  using  the  name  of  any  creature, 
of  any  fact,  because  every  creature  is  man  agent  or 
patient.  Tantalus  is  but  a  name  for  you  and  me. 
Tantalus  means  the  impossibility  of  drinking  the 
waters  of  thought  which  are  always  gleaming  and 
waving  within  sight  of  the  soul.  The  transmigration 
of  souls  :  that  too  is  no  fable.  I  would  it  were  ;  but 
men  and  women  are  only  half  human.  Every  animal 
of  the  barn-yard,  the  field  and  the  forest,  of  the  earth 
and  of  the  waters  that  are  under  the  earth,  has  con 
trived  to  get  a  footing  and  to  leave  the  print  of  its 
features  and  form  in  some  one  or  other  of  these  up 
right,  heaven-facing  speakers.  Ah,  brother,  hold  fast 
to  the  man  and  awe  the  beast ;  stop  the  ebb  of  thy 
soul,  —  ebbing  downward  into  the  forms  into  whose 
habits  thou  hast  now  for  many  years  slid.  As  near 
and  proper  to  us  is  also  that  old  fable  of  the  Sphinx, 
who  was  said  to  sit  in  the  road-side  and  put  riddles 
to  every  passenger.  If  the  man  could  not  answer, 
she  swallowed  him  alive.  If  he  could  solve  the  riddle, 


HISTORY.  25 

the  Sphinx  was  slain.  What  is  our  life  but  an  end 
less  flight  of  winged  facts  or  events!  In  splendid 
variety  these  changes  come,  all  putting  questions  to 
the  human  spirit.  Those  men  who  cannot  answer  by 
a  superior  wisdom  these  facts  or  questions  of  time, 
serve  them.  Facts  encumber  them,  tyrannize  over 
them,  and  make  the  men  of  routine,  the  men  of  sense, 
in  whom  a  literal  obedience  to  facts  has  extinguished 
every  spark  of  that  light  by  which  man  is  truly  man. 
But  if  the  man  is  true  to  his  better  instincts  or  senti 
ments,  and  refuses  the  dominion  of  facts,  as  one  that 
comes  of  a  higher  race ;  remains  fast  by  the  soul 
and  sees  the  principle,  then  the  facts  fall  aptly  and 
supple  into  their  places  ;  they  know  their  master,  and 
'  the  meanest  of  them  glorifies  him. 

See  in  Goethe's  Helena  the  same  desire  that  every 
word  should  be  a  thing.  These  figures,  he  would 
say,  these  Chirons,  Griffins,  Phorkyas,  Helen  and 
Leda,  are  somewhat,  and  do  exert  a  specific  in 
fluence  on  the  mind.  So  far  then  are  they  eternal 
entities,  as  real  to-day  as  in  the  first  Olympiad.  Much 
revolving  them  he  writes  out  freely  his  humor,  and 
gives  them  body  to  his  own  imagination.  And 
although  that  poem  be  as  vague  and  fantastic  as  a 
dream,  yet  it  is  much  more  attractive  than  the  more 
regular  dramatic  pieces  of  the  same  author,  for  the 
reason  that  it  operates  a  wonderful  relief  to  the  mind 
from  the  routine  of  customary  images,  —  awakens  the 
reader's  invention  and  fancy  by  the  wild  freedom  of 
the  design,  and  by  the  unceasing  succession  of  brisk 
shocks  of  surprise. 

The  universal   nature,    too  strong  for    the  petty 


26  HISTORY. 

nature  of  the  bard,  sits  on  his  neck  and  writes 
through  his  hand ;  so  that  when  he  seems  to  vent  a 
mere  caprice  and  wild  romance,  the  issue  is  an  exact 
allegory.  Hence  Plato  said  that  "poets  utter  great 
and  wise  things  which  they  do  not  themselves  under 
stand."  All  the  fictions  of  the  Middle  Age  explain 
themselves  as  a  masked  or  frolic  expression  of  that 
which  in  grave  earnest  the  mind  of  that  period  toiled 
to  achieve.  Magic  and  all  that  is  ascribed  to  it  is 
manifestly  a  deep  presentiment  of  the  powers  of 
science.  The  shoes  of  swiftness,  the  sword  of  sharp 
ness,  the  power  of  subduing  the  elements,  of  using 
the  secret  virtues  of  minerals,  of  understanding  the 
voices  of  birds,  are  the  obscure  efforts  of  the  mind  in 
a  right  direction.  The  preternatural  prowess  of  the 
hero,  the  gift  of  perpetual  youth,  and  the  like,  are 
alike  the  endeavor  of  the  human  spirit  "  to  bend  the 
shows  of  things  to  the  desires  of  the  mind." 

In  Perceforest  and  Amadis  de  Gaul  a  garland  and 
a  rose  bloom  on  the  head  of  her  who  is  faithful,  and 
fade  on  the  brow  of  the  inconstant.  In  the  story  of 
the  Boy  and  the  Mantle  even  a  mature  reader  may  be 
surprised  with  a  glow  of  virtuous  pleasure  at  the 
triumph  of  the  gentle  Genelas ;  and  indeed  all  the 
postulates  of  elfin  annals,  that  the  fairies  do  not  like 
to  be  named ;  that  their  gifts  are  capricious  and  not 
to  be  trusted ;  that  who  seeks  a  treasure  must  not 
speak ;  and  the  like  I  find  true  in  Concord,  however 
they  might  be  in  Cornwall  or  Bretagne. 

Is  it  otherwise  in  the  newest  romance?  I  read  the 
Bride  of  Lammermoor.  Sir  William  Ashton  is  a 
mask  for  a  vulgar  temptation,  Ravenswood  Castle  a 


HISTORY.  27 

fine  name  for  proud  poverty,  and  the  foreign  mission 
of  state  only  a  Bunyan  disguise  for  honest  industry. 
We  may  all  shoot  a  wild  bull  that  would  toss  the 
good  and  beautiful,  by  fighting  down  the  unjust  and 
sensual.  Lucy  Ashton  is  another  name  for  fidelity, 
which  is  always  beautiful  and  always  liable  to  calam 
ity  in  this  world. 

But  along  with  the  civil  and  metaphysical  history 
of  man,  another  history  goes  daily  forward,  —  that  of 
the  external  world,  —  in  which  he  is  not  less  strictly 
implicated.  He  is  the  compend  of  time ;  he  is  also 
the  correlative  of  nature.  The  power  of  man  con 
sists  in  the  multitude  of  his  affinities,  in  the  fact  that 
his  life  is  intertwined  with  the  whole  chain  of  organic 
and  inorganic  being.  In  the  age  of  the  Caesars  out 
from  the  Forum  at  Rome  proceeded  the  great  high 
ways  north,  south,  east,  west,  to  the  centre  of  every 
province  of  the  empire,  making  each  market-town  of 
Persia,  Spain,  and  Britain  pervious  to  the  soldiers  of 
the  capital :  so  out  of  the  human  heart  go  as  it  were 
highways  to  the  heart  of  every  object  in  nature,  to  re 
duce  it  under  the  dominion  of  man.  A  man  is  a 
bundle  of  relations,  a  knot  of  roots,  whose  flower  and 
fruitage  is  the  world.  All  his  faculties  refer  to  natures 
out  of  him  and  predict  the  world  he  is  to  inhabit,  as 
the  fins  of  the  fish  foreshow  that  water  exists,  or  the 
wings  of  an  eagle  in  the  egg  presuppose  air.  Insulate 
and  you  destroy  him.  He  cannot  live  without  a 
a  world.  Put  Napoleon  in  an  island  prison,  let  his 
faculties  find  no  men  to  act  on,  no  Alps  to  climb,  no 
stake  to  play  for,  and  he  would  beat  the  air,  and 
appear  stupid.  Transport  him  to  large  countries, 


28  HISTORY. 

dense  population,  complex  interests  and  antagonist 
power,  and  you  shall  see  that  the  man  Napoleon, 
bounded  that  is  by  such  a  profile  and  outline,  is  not 
the  virtual  Napoleon.  This  is  but  Talbof  s  shadow ; 

His  substance  is  not  here. 
For  what  you  see  is  but  the  smallest  part 
And  least  proportion  of  humanity ; 
But  were  the  whole  frame  here, 
It  is  of  such  a  spacious,  lofty  pitch, 
Your  roof  were  not  sufficient  to  contain  it. 

Henry   VI. 

Columbus  needs  a  planet  to  shape  his  course  upon. 
Newton  and  Laplace  need  myriads  of  age  and  thick- 
strown  celestial  areas.  One  may  say  a  gravitating 
solar  system  is  already  prophesied  in  the  nature  of 
Newton's  mind.  Not  less  does  the  brain  of  Davy  or 
of  Gay  Lussac,  from  childhood  exploring  the  affini 
ties  and  repulsions  of  particles,  anticipate  the  laws  of 
organization.  Does  not  the  eye  of  the  human  em 
bryo  predict  the  light?  the  ear  of  Handel  predict  the 
witchcraft  of  harmonic  sound?  Do'  not  the  con 
structive  fingers  of  Watt,  Fulton,  Whittemore,  Ark- 
wright,  predict  the  fusible,  hard,  and  temperable 
texture  of  metals,  the  properties  of  stone,  water,  and 
wood?  the  lovely  attributes  of  the  n>aiden  child  pre 
dict  the  refinements  and  decorations  of  civil  society? 
Here  also  we  are  reminded  of  the  action  of  man  on 
man.  A  mind  might  ponder  its  thought  for  ages  and 
not  gain  so  much  self-knowledge  as  the  passion  (of 
love  shall  teach  it  in  a  day.  Who  knows  himself  be 
fore  he  has  been  thrilled  with  indignation  at  an  out 
rage,  or  has  heard  an  eloquent  tongue,  or  has  shared 


HISTORY.  29 

the  throb  of  thousands  in  a  national  exultation  or 
alarm?  No  man  can  antedate  his  experience,  or 
guess  what  faculty  or  feeling  a  new  object  shall  un 
lock,  any  more  than  he  can  draw  to-day  the  face  of  a 
person  whom  he  shall  see  to-morrow  for  the  first 
time. 

I  will  not  now  go  behind  the  general  statement  to 
explore  the  reason  of  this  correspondency.  Let  it 
suffice  that  in  the  light  of  these  two  facts,  namely,- 
that  the  mind  is  One,  and  that  nature  is  its  correla 
tive,  history  is  to  be  read  and  written. 

Thus  in  all  ways  does  the  soul  concentrate  and  re 
produce  its  treasures  for  each  pupil,  for  each  new-born 
man.  He  too  shall  pass  through  the  whole  cycle  of 
experience.  He  shall  collect  into  a  focus  the  rays  of 
nature.  History  no  longer  shall  be  a  dull  book.  It 
shall  walk  incarnate  in  every  just  and  wise  man.  You 
shall  not  tell  me  by  languages  and  titles  a  catalogue 
of  the  volumes  you  have  read.  You  shall  make  me 
feel  what  periods  you  have  lived.  A  man  shall  be  the 
Temple  of  Fame.  He  shall  walk,  as  the  poets  have 
described  that  goddess,  in  a  robe  painted  all  over 
with  wonderful  events  and  experiences;  —  his  own 
form  and  features  by  their  exalted  intelligence  shall 
be  that  variegated  vest.  I  shall  find  in  him  the  Fore- 
world  ;  in  his  childhood  the  Age  of  Gold,  the  Apples 
of  Knowledge,  the  Argonautic  Expedition,  the  call 
ing  of  Abraham,  the  building  of  the  Temple,  the 
Advent  of  Christ,  Dark  Ages,  the  Revival  of  Letters, 
the  Reformation,  the  discovery  of  new  lands,  the 
opening  of  new  sciences  and  new  regions  in  man. 
He  shall  be  the  priest  of  Pan,  and  bring  with  him 


3°  HISTORY. 

into  humble  cottages  the  blessings  of  the  morning 
stars,  and  all  the  recorded  benefits  of  heaven  and 
earth. 

Is  there  somewhat  overweening  in  this  claim? 
Then  I  reject  all  I  have  written,  for  what  is  the  use 
of  pretending  to  know  what  we  know  not?  But  it  is 
the  fault  of  our  rhetoric  that  we  cannot  strongly  state 
one  fact  without  seeming  to  belie  some  other.  I 
hold  our  actual  knowledge  very  cheap.  Hear  the 
rats  in  the  wall,  see  the  lizard  on  the  fence,  the  fun 
gus  under  foot,  the  lichen  on  the  log.  What  do  I 
know  sympathetically,  morally,  of  either  of  these 
worlds  of  life?  As  long  as  the  Caucasian  man, — 
perhaps  longer,  —  these  creatures  have  kept  their 
counsel  beside  him,  and  there  is  no  record  of  any 
word  or  sign  that  has  passed  from  one  to  the  other. 
Nay,  what  does  history  yet  record  of  the  metaphys 
ical  annals  of  man?  What  light  does  it  shed  on 
those  mysteries  which  we  hide  under  the  names 
Death  and  Immortality?  Yet  every  history  should 
be  written  in  a  wisdom  which  divined  the  range  of 
our  affinities  and  looked  at  facts  as  symbols.  I  am 
ashamed  to  see  what  a  shallow  village  tale  our  so- 
called  History  is.  How  many  times  we  must  say 
Rome,  and  Paris,  and  Constantinople !  What  does 
Rome  know  of  rat  and  lizard?  What  are  Olympiads 
and  Consulates  to  these  neighboring  systems  of  being? 
Nay,  what  food  or  experience  or  succor  have  they  for 
the  Esquimaux  seal-hunter,  for  the  Kanaka  in  his 
canoe,  for  the  fisherman,  the  stevedore,  the  porter? 

Broader  and  deeper  we  must  write  our  annals,  — 
from  an  ethical  reformation,  from  an  influx  of  the 


HISTORY.  31 

ever  new,  ever  sanative  conscience,  —  if  we  would 
trulier  express  our  central  and  wide-related  nature, 
instead  of  this  old  chronology  of  selfishness  and  pride 
to  which  we  have  too  long  lent  our  eyes.  Already 
that  day  exists  for  us,  shines  in  on  us  at  unawares, 
but  the  path  of  science  and  of  letters  is  not  the  way 
into  nature,  but  from  it,  rather.  The  idiot,  the  In 
dian,  the  child  and  unschooled  farmer's  boy  come 
much  nearer  to  these  —  understand  them  better  than 
the  dissector  or  the  antiquary. 


ESSAY   II. 

SELF-RELIANCE. 

Ne  te  qusesiveris  extra. 

Man  is  his  own  star ;  and  the  soul  that  can 
Render  an  honest  and  a  perfect  man, 
Commands  all  light,  all  influence,  all  fate; 
Nothing  to  him  falls  early  or  too  late. 
Our  acts  our  angels  are,  or  good  or  ill, 
Our  fatal  shadows  that  walk  by  us  still. 
Epilogue  to  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  s  Honest  Man's  Fortune, 


Cast  the  bantling  on  the  rocks, 
Suckle  him  wim  the  she-wolfs  teat, 
Wintered  with  the  hawk  and  fox, 
Power  and  speed  be  hands  and  feet. 

I  READ  the  other  day  some  verses  written  by  an 
eminent  painter  which  were  original  and  not  con 
ventional.  Always  the  soul  hears  an  admonition  in 
such  lines,  let  the  subject  be  what  it  may.  The  sen 
timent  they  instil  is  of  more  value  than  any  thought 
they  may  contain.  To  believe  your  own  thought,  to 
believe  that  what  is  true  for  you  in  your  private  heart 
is  true  for  all  men,  —  that  is  genius.  Speak  your 
latent  conviction,  and  it  shall  be  the  universal  sense ; 
for  always  the  inmost  becomes  the  outmost  —  and  our 
first  thought  is  rendered  back  to  us  by  the  trumpets 
32 


SELF-RELIANCE.  33 

of  the  Last  Judgment.  Familiar  as  the  voice  of  the 
mind  is  to  each,  the  highest  merit  we  ascribe  to 
Moses,  Plato  and  Milton  is  that  they  set  at  naught 
books  and  traditions,  and  spoke  not  what  men,  but 
what  they  thought.  A  man  should  learn  to  detect 
and  watch  that  gleam  of  light  which  flashes  across  his 
mind  from  within,  more  than  the  lustre  of  the  firma 
ment  of  bards  and  sages.  Yet  he  dismisses  without 
notice  his  thought,  because  it  is  his.  In  every  work 
of  genius  we  recognize  our  own  rejected  thoughts ; 
they  come  back  to  us  with  a  certain  alienated  maj 
esty.  Great  works  of  art  have  no  more  affecting 
lesson  for  us  than  this.  They  teach  us  to  abide  by 
our  spontaneous  impression  with  good-humored  in 
flexibility  then  most  when  the  whole  cry  of  voices  is 
on  the  other  side.  Else  to-morrow  a  stranger  will 
say  with  masterly  good  sense  precisely  what  we  have 
thought  and  felt  all  the  time,  and  we  shall  be  forced 
to  take  with  shame  our  own  opinion  from  another. 

There  is  a  time  in  every  man's  education  when 
he  arrives  at  the  conviction  that  envy  is  ignorance ; 
that  imitation  is  suicide ;  that  he  must  take  himself 
for  better  for  worse  as  his  portion ;  that  though  the 
wide  universe  is  full  of  good,  no  kernel  of  nourish 
ing  corn  can  come  to  him  but  through  his  toil  be 
stowed  on  that  plot  of  ground  which  is  given  to  him 
to  till.  The  power  which  resides  in  him  is  new  in 
nature,  and  none  but  he  knows  what  that  is  which  he 
can  do,  nor  does  he  know  until  he  has  tried.  Not 
for  nothing  one  face,  one  character,  one  fact,  makes 
much  impression  on  him,  and  another  none.  It  is 
not  without  preestablished  harmony,  this  sculpture  in 


34  SELF-RELIANCE. 

the  memory.  The  eye  was  placed  where  one  ray 
should  fall,  that  it  might  testify  of  that  particular 
ray.  Bravely  let  him  speak  the  utmost  syllable  of  his 
confession.  We  but  half  express  ourselves,  and  are 
ashamed  of  that  divine  idea  which  each  mof  us  repre 
sents.  It  may  be  safely  trusted  as  proportionate  and 
of  good  issues,  so  it  be  faithfully  imparted,  but  God 
will  not  have  his  work  made  manifest  by  cowards. 
It  needs  a  divine  man  to  exhibit  anything  divine.  A 
man  is  relieved  and  gay  when  he  has  put  his  heart 
into  his  work  and  done  his  best ;  but  what  he  has 
said  or  done  otherwise  shall  give  him  no  peace.  It 
is  a  deliverance  which  does  not  deliver.  In  the 
attempt  his  genius  deserts  him ;  no  muse  befriends ; 
no  invention,  no  hope. 

Trust  thyself:  every  heart  vibrates  to  that  iron 
string.  Accept  the  place  the  divine  providence  has 
found  for  you,  the  society  of  your  contemporaries, 
the  connexion  of  events.  Great  men  have  always 
done  so,  and  confided  themselves  childlike  to  the 
genius  of  their  age,  betraying  their  perception  that 
the  Eternal  was  stirring  at  their  heart,  working 
through  their  hands,  predominating  in  all  their  being. 
And  we  are  now  men,  and  must  accept  in  the  highest 
mind  the  same  transcendent  destiny ;  and  not  pinched 
in  a  corner,  not  cowards  fleeing  before  a  revolution, 
but  redeemers  and  benefactors,  pious  aspirants  to  be 
noble  clay  under  the  Almighty  effort  let  us  advance 
on  Chaos  and  the  Dark. 

What  pretty  oracles  nature  yields  us  on  this  text 
in  the  face  and  behavior  of  children,  babes,  and 
even  brutes.  That  divided  and  rebel  mind,  that 


SELF-RELIANCE.  35 

distrust  of  a  sentiment  because  our  arithmetic  has 
computed  the  strength  and  means  opposed  to  our 
purpose,  these  have  not.  Their  mind  being  whole, 
their  eye  is  as  yet  unconquered,  and  when  we  look 
in  their  faces,  we  are  disconcerted.  Infancy  con 
forms  to  nobody ;  all  conform  to  it ;  so  that  one 
babe  commonly  makes  four  or  five  out  of  the  adults 
who  prattle  and  play  to  it.  So  God  has  armed 
youth  and  puberty  and  manhood  no  less  with  its 
own  piquancy  and  charm,  and  made  it  enviable  and 
gracious  and  its  claims  not  to  be  put  by,  if  it  will 
stand  by  itself.  Do  not  think  the  youth  has  no  force, 
because  he  cannot  speak  to  you  and  me.  Hark !  in 
the  next  room  who  spoke  so  clear  and  emphatic?  It 
seems  he  knows  how  to  speak  to  his  contemporaries. 
Good  Heaven  !  it  is  he !  it  is  that  very  lump  of  bash- 
fulness  and  phlegm  which  for  weeks  has  done  nothing 
but  eat  when  you  were  by,  and  now  rolls  out  these 
words  like  bell-strokes.  It  seems  he  knows  how  to 
speak  to  his  contemporaries.  Bashful  or  bold  then,  he 
will  know  how  to  make  us  seniors  very  unnecessary. 
The  nonchalance  of  boys  who  are  sure  of  a  din 
ner,  and  would  disdain  as  much  as  a  lord  to  do  or 
say  aught  to  conciliate  one,  is  the  healthy  attitude 
of  human  nature.  How  is  a  boy  the  master  of  soci 
ety  ;  independent,  irresponsible,  looking  out  from 
his  corner  on  such  people  and  facts  as  pass  by,  he 
tries  and  sentences  them  on  their  merits,  in  the 
swift,  summary  way  of  boys,  as  good,  bad,  interest 
ing,  silly,  eloquent,  troublesome.  He  cumbers  him 
self  never  about  consequences,  about  interests ;  he 
gives  an  independent,  genuine  verdict.  You  must 


36  SELF-RELIANCE. 

court  him  ;  he  does  not  court  you.  But  the  man  is  as 
it  were  clapped  into  jail  by  his  consciousness.  As 
soon  as  he  has  once  acted  or  spoken  with  eclat  he  is 
a  committed  person,  watched  by  the  sympathy  or  the 
hatred  of  hundreds,  whose  affections  must  now  enter 
into  his  account.  There  is  no  Lethe  for  this.  Ah, 
that  he  could  pass  again  into  his  neutral,  godlike 
independence !  Who  can  thus  lose  all  pledge  and, 
having  observed,  observe  again  from  the  same  unaf 
fected,  unbiased,  unbribable,  unaffrighted  innocence, 
must  always  be  formidable,  must  always  engage  the 
poet's  and  the  man's  regards.  Of  such  an  immortal 
youth  the  force  would  be  felt.  He  would  utter 
opinions  on  all  passing  affairs,  which  being  seen  to 
be  not  private  but  necessary,  would  sink  like  darts 
into  the  ear  of  men  and  put  them  in  fear. 

These  are  the  voices  which  we  hear  in  solitude, 
but  they  grow  faint  and  inaudible  as  we  enter  into 
the  world.  Society  everywhere  is  in  conspiracy 
against  the  manhood  of  every  one  of  its  members. 
Society  is  a  joint-stock  company,  in  which  the  mem 
bers  agree,  for  the  better  securing  of  his  bread  to 
each  shareholder,  to  surrender  the  liberty  and  cul 
ture  of  the  eater.  The  virtue,  in  most  request  is 
conformity.  Self-reliance  is  its  aversion.  It  loves 
not  realities  and  creators,  but  names  and  customs. 

Whoso  would  be  a  man,  must  be  a  nonconformist. 
He  who  would  gather  immortal  palms  must  not  be 
hindered  by  the  name  of  goodness,  but  must  explore 
if  it  be  goodness.  Nothing  is  at  last  sacred  but  the 
integrity  of  our  own  mind.  Absolve  you  to  your 
self,  and  you  shall  have  the  suffrage  of  the  world. 


SELF-RELIANCE.  37 

I  remember  an  answer  which  when  quite  young  I 
was  prompted  to  make  to  a  valued  adviser  who  was 
wont  to  importune  me  with  the  dear  old  doctrines 
of  the  church.  On  my  saying,  What  have  I  to  do 
with  the  sacredness  of  traditions,  if  I  live  wholly 
from  within?  my  friend  suggested,  — "  But  these 
impulses  may  be  from  below,  not  from  above." 
I  replied,  "  They  do  not  seem  to  me  to  be  such ; 
but  if  I  am  the  devil's  child,  I  will  live  then  from 
the  devil."  No  law  can  be  sacred  to  me  but  that 
of  my  nature.  Good  and  bad  are  but  names  very 
readily  transferable  to  that  or  this ;  the  only  right 
is  what  is  after  my  constitution ;  the  only  wrong 
what  is  against  it.  A  man  is  to  carry  himself  in  the 
presence  of  all  opposition  as  if  every  thing  were 
titular  and  ephemeral  but  he.  I  am  ashamed  to 
think  how  easily  we  capitulate  to  badges  and  names, 
to  large  societies  and  dead  institutions.  Every 
decent  and  well-spoken  individual  affects  and  sways 
me  more  than  is  right.  I  ought  to  go  upright  and 
vital,  and  speak  the  rude  truth  in  all  ways.  If 
malice  and  vanity  wear  the  coat  of  philanthropy, 
shall  that  pass?  If  an  angry  bigot  assumes  this 
bountiful  cause  of  Abolition,  and  comes  to  me  with 
his  last  news  from  Barbadoes,  why  should  I  not  say 
to  him,  "Go  love  thy  infant;  love  thy  wood-chop 
per  ;  be  good-natured  and  modest ;  have  that  grace ; 
and  never  varnish  your  hard,  uncharitable  ambition 
with  this  incredible  tenderness  for  black  folk  a 
thousand  miles  off.  Thy  love  afar  is  spite  at  home." 
Rough  and  graceless  would  be  such  greeting,  but 
truth  is  handsomer  than  the  affectation  of  love. 


38  SELF-RELIANCE. 

Your  goodness  must  have  some  edge  t6  it,  —  else  it 
is  none.  The  doctrine  of  hatred  must  be  preached, 
as  the  counteraction  of  the  doctrine  of  love,  when 
that  pules  and  whines.  I  shun  father  and  mother 
and  wife  and  brother  when  my  genius  calls  me.  I 
would  write  on  the  lintels  of  the  door-post,  Whim. 
I  hope  it  is  somewhat  better  than  whim  at  last,  but 
we  cannot  spend  the  day  in  explanation.  Expect 
me  not  to  show  cause  why  I  seek  or  why  I  exclude 
company.  Then,  again,  do  not  tell  me,  as  a  good 
man  did  to-day,  of  my  obligation  to  put  all  poor 
men  in  good  situations.  Are  they  my  poor?  I  tell 
thee,  thou  foolish  philanthropist,  that  I  grudge  the 
dollar,  the  dime,  the  cent  I  give  to  such  men  as  do 
not  belong  to  me  and  to  whom  I  do  not  belong. 
There  is  a  class  of  persons  to  whom  by  all  spiritual 
affinity  I  am  bought  and  sold ;  for  them  I  will  go  to 
prison  if  need  be ;  but  your  miscellaneous  popular 
charities  ;  the  education  at  college  of  fools  ;  the  build 
ing  of  meeting-houses  to  the  vain  end  to  which  many 
now  stand ;  alms  to  sots,  and  the  thousandfold  Relief 
Societies  ;  —  though  I  confess  with  shame  I  sometimes 
succumb  and  give  the  dollar,  it  is  a  wicked  dollar, 
which  by-and-by  I  shall  have  the  manhood  to  with 
hold. 

Virtues  are,  in  the  popular  estimate,  rather  the 
exception  than  the  rule.  There  is  the  man  and  his 
virtues.  Men  do  what  is  called  a  good  action,  as 
some  piece  of  courage  or  charity,  much  as  they 
would  pay  a  fine  in  expiation  of  daily  non-appearance 
on  parade.  Their  works  are  done  as  an  apology  or 
extenuation  of  their  living  in  the  world,  —  as  invalids 


SELF-RELIANCE.  39 

and  the  insane  pay  a  high  board.  Their  virtues  are 
penances.  I  do  not  wish  to  expiate,  but  to  live.  My 
life  is  not  an  apology,  but  a  life.  It  is  for  itself  and 
not  for  a  spectacle.  I  much  prefer  that  it  should  be 
of  a  lower  strain,  so  it  be  genuine  and  equal,  than  that 
it  should  be  glittering  and  unsteady.  I  wish  it  to  be 
sound  and  sweet,  and  not  to  need  diet  and  bleeding. 
My  life  should  be  unique ;  it  should  be  an  alms,  a 
battle,  a  conquest,  a  medicine.  I  ask  primary  evi 
dence  that  you  are  a  man,  and  refuse  this  appeal  from 
the  man  to  his  actions.  I  know  that  for  myself  it 
makes  no  difference  whether  I  do  or  forbear  those 
actions  which  are  reckoned  excellent.  I  cannot  con 
sent  to  pay  for  a  privilege  where  I  have  intrinsic 
right.  Few  and  mean  as  my  gifts  may  be,  I  actually 
am,  and  do  not  need  for  my  own  assurance  or  the 
assurance  of  my  fellows  any  secondary  testimony. 

What  I  must  do  is  all  that  concerns  me,  not  what 
the  people  think.  This  rule,  equally  arduous  in  ac 
tual  and  in  intellectual  life,  may  serve  for  the  whole 
distinction  between  greatness  and  meanness.  It  is 
the  harder  because  you  will  always  find  those  who 
think  they  know  what  is  your  duty  better  than  you 
know  it.  It  is  easy  in  the  world  to  live  after  the 
world's  opinion ;  it  is  easy  in  solitude  to  live  after 
our  own ;  but  the  great  man  is  he  who  in  the  midst 
of  the  crowd  keeps  with  perfect  sweetness  the  inde 
pendence  of  solitude. 

The  objection  to  conforming  to  usages  that  have 
become  dead  to  you  is  that  it  scatters  your  force. 
It  loses  your  time  and  blurs  the  impression  of  your 
character.  If  you  maintain  a  dead  church,  contrib- 


40  SELF-RELIANCE. 

ute  to  a  dead  Bible  Society,  vote  with  a  great  party 
either  for  the  Government  or  against  it,  spread  your 
table  like  base  housekeepers,  —  under  all  these 
screens  I  have  difficulty  to  detect  the  precise  man 
you  are.  And  of  course  so  much  force  is  withdrawn 
from  your  proper  life.  But  do  your  thing,  and  I  shall 
know  you.  Do  your  work,  and  you  shall  reinforce 
yourself.  A  man  must  consider  what  a  blindman's- 
buff  is  this  game  of  conformity.  If  I  know  your  sect 
I  anticipate  your  argument.  I  hear  a  preacher  an 
nounce  for  his  text  and  topic  the  expediency  of  one 
of  the  institutions  of  his  church.  Do  I  not  know 
beforehand  that  not  possibly  can  he  say  a  new  and 
spontaneous  word  ?  Do  I  not  know  that  with  all  this 
ostentation  of  examining  the  grounds  of  the  institu 
tion  he  will  do  no  such  thing?  Do  I  not  know  that 
he  is  pledged  to  himself  not  to  look  but  at  one  side, 
the  permitted  side,  not  as  a  man,  but  as  a  parish 
minister?  He  is  a  retained  attorney,  and  these  airs 
of  the  bench  are  the  emptiest  affectation.  Well, 
most  men  have  bound  their  eyes  with  one  or  another 
handkerchief,  and  attached  themselves  to  some  one 
of  these  communities  of  opinion.  This  conformity 
makes  them  not  false  in  a  few  particulars,  authors  of 
a  few  lies,  but  false  in  all  particulars.  Their  every 
truth  is  not  quite  true.  Their  two  is  not  the  real 
two,  their  four  not  the  real  four :  so  that  every  word 
they  say  chagrins  us  and  we  know  not  where  to  begin 
to  set  them  right.  Meantime  nature  is  not  slow  to 
equip  us  in  the  prison-uniform  of  the  party  to  which 
we  adhere.  We  come  to  wear  one  cut  of  face  and 
figure,  and  acquire  by  degrees  the  gentlest  asinine 


SELF-RELIANCE.  41 

expression.  There  is  a  mortifying  experience  in  par 
ticular,  which  does  not  fail  to  wreak  itself  also  in  the 
general  history;  I  mean  "the  foolish  face  of  praise,1' 
the  forced  smile  which  we  put  on  in  company  where 
we  do  not  feel  at  ease,  in  answer  to  conversation 
which  does  not  interest  us.  The  muscles,  not  spon 
taneously  moved  but  moved  by  a  low  usurping  wil- 
fulness,  grow  tight  about  the  outline  of  the  face,  and 
make  the  most  disagreeable  sensation ;  a  sensation 
of  rebuke  and  warning  which  no  brave  young  man 
will  suffer  twice. 

For  non-conformity  the  world  whips  you  with  its 
displeasure.  And  therefore  a  man  must  know  how  to 
estimate  a  sour  face.  The  bystanders  look  askance 
on  him  in  the  public  street  or  in  the  friend's  par 
lor.  If  this  aversation  had  its  origin  in  contempt 
and  resistance  like  his  own  he  might  well  go  home 
with  a  sad  countenance ;  but  the  sour  faces  of  the 
multitude,  like  their  sweet  faces,  have  no  deep  cause 
—  disguise  no  god,  but  are  put  on  and  off  as  the 
wind  blows  and  a  newspaper  directs.  Yet  is  the  dis 
content  of  the  multitude  more  formidable  than  that 
of  the  senate  and  the  college.  It  is  easy  enough  for 
a  firm  man  who  knows  the  world  to  brook  the  rage 
of  the  cultivated  classes.  Their  rage  is  decorous  and 
prudent,  for  they  are  timid,  as  being  very  vulnerable 
themselves.  But  when  to  their  feminine  rage  the 
indignation  of  the  people  is  added,  when  the  ignorant 
and  the  poor  are  aroused,  when  the  unintelligent 
brute  force  that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  society  is  made 
to  growl  and  mow,  it  needs  the  habit  of  magnanimity 
and  religion  to  treat  it  godlike  as  a  trifle  of  no  con 
cernment. 


42  SELF-RELIANCE. 

The  other  terror  that  scares  us  from  self-trust  is 
our  consistency  ;  a  reverence  for  our  past  act  or  word 
because  the  eyes  of  others  have  no  other  data  for 
computing  our  orbit  than  our  past  acts,  and  we  are 
loath  to  disappoint  them. 

But  why  should  you  keep  your  head  over  your 
shoulder?  Why  drag  about  this  monstrous  corpse 
of  your  memory,  lest  you  contradict  somewhat  you 
have  stated  in  this  or  that  public  place?  Suppose 
you  should  contradict  yourself;  what  then?  It  seems 
to  be  a  rule  of  wisdom  never  to  rely  on  your  memory 
alone,  scarcely  even  in  acts  of  pure  memory,  but 
to  bring  the  past  for  judgment  into  the  thousand- 
eyed  present,  and  live  ever  in  a  new  day.  Trust  your 
emotion.  In  your  metaphysics  you  have  denied  per 
sonality  to  the  Deity,  yet  when  the  devout  motions 
of  the  soul  come,  yield  to  them  heart  and  life,  though 
they  should  clothe  God  with  shape  and  color.  Leave 
your  theory,  as  Joseph  his  coat  in  the  hand  of  the  har 
lot,  and  flee. 

A  foolish  consistency  is  the  hobgoblin  of  little 
minds,  adored  by  little  statesmen  and  philosophers 
and  divines.  With  consistency  a  great  soul  has  sim 
ply  nothing  to  do.  He  may  as  well  concern  him 
self  with  his  shadow  on  the  wall.  Out  upon  your 
guarded  lips.!  Sew  them  up  with  packthread,  do. 
Else  if  you  would  be  a  man  speak  what  you  think 
to-day  in  words  as  hard  as  cannon  balls,  and  to-mor 
row  speak  what  to-morrow  thinks  in  hard  words  again, 
though  it  contradict  every  thing  you  said  to-day.  Ah, 
then,  exclaim  the  aged  ladies,  you  shall  be  sure  to  be 
misunderstood  !  Misunderstood !  It  is  a  right  fooPs 


SELF-RELIANCE.  43 

word.  Is  it  so  bad  then  to  be  misunderstood?  Py 
thagoras  was  misunderstood,  and  Socrates,  and  Jesus, 
and  Luther,  and  Copernicus,  and  Galileo,  and  New 
ton,  and  every  pure  and  wise  spirit  that  ever  took 
flesh.  To  be  great  is  to  be  misunderstood. 

I  suppose  no  man  can  violate  his  nature.  All  the 
sallies  of  his  will  are  rounded  in  by  the  law  of  his 
being,  as  the  inequalities  of  Andes  and  Himmaleh  are 
insignificant  in  the  curve  of  the  sphere.  Nor  does  it 
matter  how  you  gauge  and  try  him.  A  character  is 
like  an  acrostic  or  Alexandrian  stanza ;  —  read  it  for 
ward,  backward,  or  across,  it  still  spells  the  same  thing. 
In  this  pleasing  contrite  wood-life  which  God  allows 
me,  let  me  record  day  by  day  my  honest  thought 
without  prospect  or  retrospect,  and,  I  cannot  doubt, 
it  will  be  found  symmetrical,  though  I  mean  it  not 
and  see  it  not.  My  book  should  smell  of  pines  and 
resound  with  the  hum  of  insects.  The  swallow  over 
my  window  should  interweave  that  thread  or  straw  he 
carries  in  his  bill  into  my  web  also.  We  pass  for 
what  we  are.  Character  teaches  above  our  wills. 
Men  imagine  that  they  communicate  their  virtue  or 
vice  only  by  overt  actions,  and  do  not  see  that  virtue 
or  vice  emit  a  breath  every  moment. 

Fear  never  but  you  shall  be  consistent  in  whatever 
variety  of  actions,  so  they  be  each  honest  and 
natural  in  their  hour.  For  of  one  will,  the  actions 
will  be  harmonious,  however  unlike  they  seem. 
These  varieties  are  lost  sight  of  when  seen  at  a  little 
distance,  at  a  little  height  of  thought.  One  tendency 
unites  them  all.  The  voyage  of  the  best  ship  is 
a  zigzag  line  of  a  hundred  tacks.  This  is  only  mi- 


44  SELF-RELIANCE. 

croscopic  criticism.  See  the  line  from  a  sufficient 
distance,  and  it  straightens  itself  to  the  average  ten 
dency.  Your  genuine  action  will  explain  itself  and 
will  explain  your  other  genuine  actions.  Your  con 
formity  explains  nothing.  Act  singly,  and  what  you 
have  already  done  singly  will  justify  you  now.  Great 
ness  always  appeals  to  the  future.  If  I  can  be  great 
enough  now  to  do  right  and  scorn  eyes,  I  must  have 
done  so  much  right  before  as  to  defend  me  now.  Be 
it  how  it  will,  do  right  now.  Always  scorn  appear 
ances  and  you  always  may.  The  force  of  character 
is  cumulative.  All  the  foregone  days  of  virtue  work 
their  health  into  this.  What  makes  the  majesty  of 
the  heroes  of  the  senate  and  the  field,  which  so  fills 
the  imagination?  The  consciousness  of  a  train  of 
great  days  and  victories  behind.  There  they  all 
stand  and  shed  an  united  light  on  the  advancing 
actor.  He  is  attended  as  by  a  visible  escort  of  angels 
to  every  man's  eye.  That  is  it  which  throws  thunder 
into  Chatham's  voice,  and  dignity  into  Washington's 
port,  and  America  into  Adams's  eye.  Honor  is 
venerable  to  us  because  it  is  no  ephemeris.  It  is 
always  ancient  virtue.  We  worship  it  to-day  be 
cause  it  is  not  of  to-day.  We  love  it  and  pay  it 
homage  because  it  is  not  a  trap  for  our  love  and 
homage,  but  is  self-dependent,  self-derived,  and  there 
fore  of  an  old  immaculate  pedigree,  even  if  shown 
in  a  young  person. 

I  hope  in  these  days  we  have  heard  the  last  of 
conformity  and  consistency.  Let  the  words  be  ga 
zetted  and  ridiculous  henceforward.  Instead  of  the 
gong  for  dinner,  let  us  hear  a  whistle  from  the 


SELF-RELIANCE.  45 

Spartan  fife.  Let  us  bow  and  apologize  never  more. 
A  great  man  is  coming  to  eat  at  my  house.  I  do 
not  wish  to  please  him :  I  wish  that  he  should  wish 
to  please  me.  I  will  stand  here  for  humanity,  and 
though  I  would  make  it  kind,  I  would  make  it  true. 
Let  us  affront  and  reprimand  the  smooth  mediocrity 
and  squalid  contentment  of  the  times,  and  hurl  in 
the  face  of  custom  and  trade  and  office,  the  fact 
which  is  the  upshot  of  all  history,  that  there  is  a 
great  responsible  Thinker  and  Actor  moving  wher 
ever  moves  a  man ;  that  a  true  man  belongs  to  no 
other  time  or  place,  but  is  the  centre  of  things. 
Where  he  is,  there  is  nature.  He  measures  you 
and  all  men  and  all  events.  You  are  constrained 
to  accept  his  standard.  Ordinarily,  every  body  in 
society  reminds  us  of  somewhat  else,  or  of  some 
other  person.  Character,  reality,  reminds  you  of 
nothing  else ;  it  takes  place  of  the  whole  creation. 
The  man  must  be  so  much  that  he  must  make  all 
circumstances  indifferent  —  put  all  means  into  the 
shade.  This  all  great  men  are  and  do.  Every  true 
man  is  a  cause,  a  country,  and  an  age ;  requires  in 
finite  spaces  and  numbers  and  time  fully  to  accom 
plish  his  thought ;  —  and  posterity  seem  to  follow 
his  steps  as  a  procession.  A  man  Caesar  is  born, 
and  for  ages  after  we  have  a  Roman  Empire.  Christ 
is  born,  and  millions  of  minds  so  grow  and  cleave 
to  his  genius  that  he  is  confounded  with  virtue  and 
the  possible  of  man.  An  institution  is  the  length 
ened  shadow  of  one  man ;  as,  the  Reformation,  of 
Luther;  Quakerism,  of  Fox;  Methodism,  of  Wes 
ley  ;  Abolition,  of  Clarkson.  Scipio,  Milton  called 


46  SELF-RELIANCE. 

"  the  height  of  Rome;"  and  all  history  resolves 
itself  very  easily  into  the  biography  of  a  few  stout 
and  earnest  persons. 

Let  a  man  then  know  his  worth,  and  keep  things 
under  his  feet.  Let  him  not  peep  or  steal,  or  skulk 
up  and  down  with  the  air  of  a  charity-boy,  a  bas 
tard,  or  an  interloper  in  the  world  which  exists  for 
him.  But  the  man  in  the  street,  finding  no  worth 
in  himself  which  corresponds  to  the  force  which 
built  a  tower  or  sculptured  a  marble  god,  feels  poor 
when  he  looks  on  these.  To  him  a  palace,  a  statue, 
or  a  costly  book  have  an  alien  and  forbidding  air, 
much  like  a  gay  equipage,  and  seem  to  say  like  that, 
'Who  are  you,  sir?'  Yet  they  all  are  his,  suitors 
for  his  notice,  petitioners  to  his  faculties  that  they 
will  come  out  and  take  possession.  The  picture 
waits  for  my  verdict ;  it  is  not  to  command  me, 
but  I  am  to  settle  its  claim  to  praise.  That  popular 
fable  of  the  sot  who  was  picked  up  dead  drunk  in 
the  street,  carried  to  the  duke's  house,  washed  and 
dressed  and  laid  in  the  duke's  bed,  and,  on  his  wak 
ing,  treated  with  all  obsequious  ceremony  like  the 
duke,  and  assured  that  he  had  been  insane  —  owes 
its  popularity  to  the  fact  that  it  symbolizes  so  well 
the  state  of  man,  who  is  in  the  world  a  sort  of  sot, 
but  now  and  then  wakes  up,  exercises  his  reason 
and  finds  himself  a  true  prince. 

Our  reading  is  mendicant  and  sycophantic.  In 
history  our  imagination  makes  fools  of  us,  plays  us 
false.  Kingdom  and  lordship,  power  and  estate,  are 
a  gaudier  vocabulary  than  private  John  and  Edward 
in  a  small  house  and  common  day's  work :  but  the 


SELF-RELIANCE.  47 

things  of  life  are  the  same  to  both :  the  sum  total 
of  both  is  the  same.  Why  all  this  deference  to 
Alfred  and  Scanderbeg  and  Gustavus?  Suppose 
they  were  virtuous;  did  they  wear  out  virtue?  As 
great  a  stake  depends  on  your  private  act  to-day  as 
followed  their  public  and  renowned  steps.  When 
private  men  shall  act  with  original  views,  the  lustre 
will  be  transferred  from  the  actions  of  kings  to  those 
of  gentlemen. 

The  world  has  indeed  been  instructed  by  its  kings, 
who  have  so  magnetized  the  eyes  of  nations.  It  has 
been  taught  by  this  colossal  symbol  the  mutual  rev 
erence  that  is  due  from  man  to  man.  The  joyful 
loyalty  with  which  men  have  everywhere  suffered  the 
king,  the  noble,  or  the  great  proprietor  to  walk  among 
them  by  a  law  of  his  own,  make  his  own  scale  of  men 
and  things  and  reverse  theirs,  pay  for  benefits  not 
with  money  but  with  honor,  and  represent  the  Law 
in  his  person,  was  the  hieroglyphic  by  which  they 
obscurely  signified  their  consciousness  of  their  own 
right  and  comeliness,  the  right  of  every  man. 

The  magnetism  which  all  original  action  exerts  is 
explained  when  we  inquire  the  reason  of  self-trust. 
Who  is  the  Trustee?  What  is  the  aboriginal  Self, 
on  which  a  universal  reliance  may  be  grounded? 
What  is  the  nature  and  power  of  that  science-baffling 
star,  without  parallax,  without  calculable  elements, 
which  shoots  a  ray  of  beauty  even  into  trivial  and 
impure  actions,  if  the  least  mark  of  independence 
appear?  The  inquiry  leads  us  to  that  source,  at 
once  the  essence  of  genius,  the  essence  of  virtue,  and 
the  essence  of  life,  which  we  call  Spontaneity  or 


48  SELF-RELIANCE. 

Instinct.  We  denote  this  primary  wisdom  as  Intui 
tion,  whilst  all  later  teachings  are  tuitions.  In  that 
deep  force,  the  last  fact  behind  which  analysis  cannot 
go,  all  things  find  their  common  origin.  For  the 
sense  of  being  which  in  calm  hours  rises,  we  know 
not  how,  in  the  soul,  is  not  diverse  from  things,  from 
space,  from  light,  from  time,  from  man,  but  one  with 
them  and  proceedeth  obviously  from  the  same  source 
whence  their  life  and  being  also  proceedeth.  We 
first  share  the  life  by  which  things  exist  and  after 
wards  see  them  as  appearances  in  nature  and  forget 
that  we  have  shared  their  cause.  Here  is  the  foun 
tain  of  action  and  the  fountain  of  thought.  Here  are 
the  lungs  of  that  inspiration  which  giveth  man  wis 
dom,  of  that  inspiration  of  man  which  cannot  be  de 
nied  without  impiety  and  atheism.  We  lie  in  the  lap 
of  immense  intelligence,  which  makes  us  organs  of  its 
activity  and  receivers  of  its  truth.  When  we  discern 
justice,  when  we  discern  truth,  we  do  nothing  of  our 
selves,  but  allow  a  passage  to  its  beams.  .  If  we  ask 
whence  this  comes,  if  we  seek  to  pry  into  the  soul  that 
causes  —  all  metaphysics,  all  philosophy  is  at  fault. 
Its  presence  or  its  absence  is  all  we  can  affirm.  Every 
man  discerns  between  the  voluntary  acts  of  his  mind 
and  his  involuntary  perceptions.  And  to  his  involun 
tary  perceptions  he  knows  a  perfect  respect  is  due. 
He  may  err  in  the  expression  of  them,  but  he  knows 
that  these  things  are  so,  like  day  and  night,  not  to  be 
disputed.  All  my  wilful  actions  and  acquisitions  are 
but  roving ;  —  the  most  trivial  reverie,  the  faintest 
native  emotion,  are  domestic  and  divine.  Thought 
less  people  contradict  as  readily  the  statement  of 


SELF-RELIANCE.  49 

perceptions  as  of  opinions,  or  rather  much  more 
readily ;  for  they  do  not  distinguish  between  percep 
tion  and  notion.  Xhey  fancy  that  I  choose  to  see 
this  or  that  thing.  But  perception  is  not  whimsical, 
but  fatal.  If  I  see  a  trait,  my  children  will  see  it 
after  me,  and  in  course  of  time  all  mankind,  —  al 
though  it  may  chance  that  no  one  has  seen  it  before 
me.  For  my  perception  of  it  is  as  much  a  fact  as  the 
sun. 

The  relations  of  the  soul  to  the  divine  spirit  are  so 
pure  that  it  is  profane  to  seek  to  interpose  helps.  It 
must  be  that  when  God  speaketh  he  should  communi 
cate,  not  one  thing,  but  all  things  ;  should  fill  the 
world  with  his  voice ;  should  scatter  forth  light, 
nature,  time,  souls,  from  the  centre  of  the  present 
thought ;  and  new  date  and  new  create  the  whole. 
Whenever  a  mind  is  simple  and  receives  a  divine 
wisdom,  then  old  things  pass  away,  —  means,  teach 
ers,  texts,  temples  fall ;  it  lives  now,  and  absorbs 
past  and  future  into  the  present  hour.  All  things  are 
made  sacred  by  relation  to  it,  —  one  thing  as  much 
as  another.  All  things  are  dissolved  to  their  centre 
by  their  cause,  and  in  the  universal  miracle  petty  and 
particular  miracles  disappear.  This  is  and  must  be. 
If  therefore  a  man  claims  to  know  and  speak  of  God 
and  carries  you  backward  to  the  phraseology  of  some 
old  mouldered  nation  in  another  country,  in  another 
world,  believe  him  not.  Is  the  acorn  better  than  the 
oak  which  is  its  fulness  and  completion  ?  Is  the  par 
ent  better  than  the  child  into  whom  he  has  cast  his 
ripened  being?  Whence  then  this  worship  of  the 
past?  The  centuries  are  conspirators  against  the 


50  SELF-RELIANCE. 

sanity  and  majesty  of  the  soul.  Time  and  space  are 
but  physiological  colors  which  the  eye  maketh,  but 
the  soul  is  light ;  where  it  is,  is  day ;  where  it  was,  is 
night ;  and  history  is  an  impertinence  and  an  injury 
if  it  be  any  thing  more  than  a  cheerful  apologue  or 
parable  of  my  being  and  becoming. 

Man  is  timid  and  apologetic ;  he  is  no  longer  up 
right  ;  he  dares  not  say  *  I  think,'  '  I  am,'  but  quotes 
some  saint  or  sage.  He  is  ashamed  before  the  blade 
of  grass  or  the  blowing  rose.  These  roses  under  my 
window  make  no  reference  to  former  roses  or  to  bet 
ter  ones  ;  they  are  for  what  they  are  ;  they  exist  with 
God  to-day.  There  is  no  time  to  them.  There  is 
simply  the  rose ;  it  is  perfect  in  every  moment  of  its 
existence.  Before  a  leaf-bud  has  burst,  its  whole  life 
acts ;  in  the  full-blown  flower  there  is  rio  more ;  in 
the  leafless  root  there  is  no  less.  Its  nature  is  sat 
isfied  and  it  satisfies  nature  in  all  moments  alike. 
There  is  no  time  to  it.  But  man  postpones  or  re 
members  ;  he  does  not  live  in  the  present,  but  with 
reverted  eye  laments  the  past,  or,  heedless  of  the 
riches  that  surround  him,  stands  on  tiptoe  to  foresee 
the  future.  He  cannot  be  happy  and  strong  until  he 
too  lives  with  nature  in  the  present,  above  time. 

This  should  be  plain  enough.  Yet  see  what  strong 
intellects  dare  not  yet  hear  God  himself  unless  he 
speak  the  phraseology  of  I  know  not  what  David,  or 
Jeremiah,  or  Paul.  We  shall  not  always  set  so  great 
a  price  on  a  few  texts,  on  a  few  lives.  We  are  like 
children  who  repeat  by  rote  the  sentences  of  gran- 
dames  and  tutors,  and,  as  they  grow  older,  of  the 
men  of  talents  and  character  they  chance  to  see,  — 


SELF-RELIANCE.  5 1 

painfully  recollecting  the  exact  words  they  spoke ; 
afterwards,  when  they  come  into  the  point  of  view 
which  those  had  who  uttered  these  sayings,  they 
understand  them  and  are  willing  to  let  the  words  go ; 
for  at  any  time  they  can  use  words  as  good  when 
occasion  comes.  So  was  it  with  us,  so  will  it  be,  if 
we  proceed.  If  we  live  truly,  we  shall  see  truly.  It 
is  as  easy  for  the  strong  man  to  be  strong,  as  it  is  for 
the  weak  to  be  weak.  When  we  have  new  percep 
tion,  we  shall  gladly  disburthen  the  memory  of  its 
hoarded  treasures  as  old  rubbish.  When  a  man  lives 
with  God,  his  voice  shall  be  as  sweet  as  the  murmur 
of  the  brook  and  the  rustle  of  the  corn. 

And  now  at  last  the  highest  truth  on  this  subject 
remains  unsaid ;  probably  cannot  be  said ;  for  all 
that  we  say  is  the  far  off  remembering  of  the  intui 
tion.  That  thought,  by  what  I  can  now  nearest 
approach  to  say  it,  is  this.  When  good  is  near  you, 
when  you  have  life  in  yourself,  —  it  is  not  by  any 
known  or  appointed  way ;  you  shall  not  discern  the 
foot-prints  of  any  other ;  you  shall  not  see  the  face 
of  man ;  you  shall  not  hear  any  name ;  —  the  way, 
the  thought,  the  good,  shall  be  wholly  strange  and 
new.  It  shall  exclude  all  other  being.  You  take 
the  way  from  man,  not  to  man.  All  persons  that 
ever  existed  are  its  fugitive  ministers.  There  shall 
be  no  fear  in  it.  Fear  and  hope  are  alike  beneath  it. 
It  asks  nothing.  There  is  somewhat  low  even  in 
hope.  We  are  then  in  vision.  There  is  nothing 
that  can  be  called  gratitude,  nor  properly  joy.  The 
soul  is  raised  over  passion.  It  seeth  identity  and 
eternal  causation.  It  is  a  perceiving  that  Truth  and 


52  SELF-RELIANCE. 

Right  are.  Hence  it  becomes  a  Tranquillity  out  of 
the  knowing  that  all  things  go  well.  Vast  spaces 
of  nature ;  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  the  South  Sea ;  vast 
intervals  of  time,  years,  centuries,  are  of  no  account. 
This  which  I  think  and  feel  underlay  that  former 
state  of  life  and  circumstances,  as  it  does  underlie 
my  present  and  will  always  all  circumstances,  and 
what  is  called  life  and  what  is  called  death. 

Life  only  avails,  not  the  having  lived.  Power 
ceases  in  the  instant  of  repose ;  it  resides  in  the  mo 
ment  of  transition  from  a  past  to  a  new  state,  in  the 
shooting  of  the  gulf,  in  the  darting  to  an  aim.  This 
one  fact  the  world  hates,  that  the  soul  becomes ;  for 
that  forever  degrades  the  past ;  turns  all  riches  to 
poverty,  all  reputation  to  a  shame ;  confounds  the 
saint  with  the  rogue ;  shoves  Jesus  and  Judas  equally 
aside.  Why  then  do  we  prate  of  self-reliance?  In 
asmuch  as  the  soul  is  present  there  will  be  power  not 
confident  but  agent.  To  talk  of  reliance  is  a  poor 
external  way  of  speaking.  Speak  rather  of  that 
which  relies  because  it  works  and  is.  Who  has  more 
soul  than  I  masters  me,  though  he  should  not  raise 
his  finger.  Round  him  I  must  revolve  by  the  gravi 
tation  of  spirits.  Who  has  less  I  rule  with  like 
facility.  We  fancy  it  rhetoric  when  we  speak  of 
eminent  virtue.  We  do  not  yet  see  that  virtue  is 
Height,  and  that  a  man  or  a  company  of  men,  plastic 
and  permeable  to  principles,  by  the  law  of  nature 
must  overpower  and  ride  all  cities,  nations,  kings, 
rich  men,  poets,  who  are  not. 

This  is  the  ultimate  fact  which  we  so  quickly  reach 
on  this,  as  on  every  topic,  the  resolution  of  all  into 


SELF-RELIANCE.  53 

the  ever-blessed  ONE.  Virtue  is  the  governor,  the 
creator,  the  reality.  All  things  real  are  so  by  so 
much  virtue  as  they  contain.  Hardship,  husbandry, 
hunting,  whaling,  war,  eloquence,  personal  weight, 
are  somewhat,  and  engage  my  respect  as  examples 
of  the  souPs  presence  and  impure  action.  I  see  the 
same  law  working  in  nature  for  conservation  and 
growth.  The  poise  of  a  planet,  the  bended  tree 
recovering  itself  from  the  strong  wind,  the  vital 
resources  of  every  animal  and  vegetable,  are  also 
demonstrations  of  the  self-sufficing  and  therefore 
self-relying  soul.  All  history,  from  its  highest  to 
its  trivial  passages  is  the  various  record  of  this  power. 

Thus  all  concentrates  ;  let  us  not  rove  ;  let  us  sit  at 
home  with  the  cause.  Let  us  stun  and  astonish  the 
intruding  rabble  of  men  and  books  and  institutions 
by  a  simple  declaration  of  the  divine  fact.  Bid  them 
take  the  shoes  from  off  their  feet,  for  God  is  here 
within.  Let  our  simplicity  judge  them,  and  our 
docility  to  our  own  law  demonstrate  the  poverty  of 
nature  and  fortune  beside  our  native  riches. 

But  now  we  are  a  mob.  Man  does  not  stand  in 
awe  of  man,  nor  is  the  soul  admonished  to  stay  at 
home,  to  put  itself  in  communication  with  the  internal 
ocean,  but  it  goes  abroad  to  beg  a  cup  of  water  of 
the  urns  of  men.  We  must  go  alone.  Isolation 
must  precede  true  society.  I  like  the  silent  church 
before  the  service  begins,  better  than  any  preaching. 
How  far  off,  how  cool,  how  chaste  the  persons  look, 
begirt  each  one  with  a  precinct  or  sanctuary.  So  let 
us  always  sit.  Why  should  we  assume  the  faults  of 
our  friend,  or  wife,  or  father,  or  child,  because  they 


54  SELF-RELIANCE. 

sit  around  our  hearth,  or  are  said  to  have  the  same 
blood?  All  men  have  my  blood  and  I  have  all  men's. 
Not  for  that  will  I  adopt  their  petulance  or  folly,  even 
to  the  extent  of  being  ashamed  of  it.  But  your  iso 
lation  must  not  be  mechanical,  but  spiritual,  that  is, 
must  be  elevation.  At  times  the  whole  world  seems 
to  be  in  conspiracy  to  importune  you  with  emphatic 
trifles.  Friend,  client,  child,  sickness,  fear,  want, 
charity,  all  knock  at  once  at  thy  closet  door  and  say, 
*  Come  out  unto  us.'  —  Do  not  spill  thy  soul ;  do  not 
all  descend ;  keep  thy  state ;  stay  at  home  in  thine 
own  heaven  ;  come  not  for  a  moment  into  their  facts, 
into  their  hubbub  of  conflicting  appearances,  but  let 
in  the  light  of  thy  law  on  their  confusion.  The  power 
men  possess  to  annoy  me  I  give  them  by  a  weak  curi 
osity.  No  man  can  come  near  me  but  through  my 
act.  "  What  we  love  that  we  have,  but  by  desire  we 
bereave  ourselves  of  the  love." 

If  we  cannot  at  once  rise  to  the  sanctities  of  obe 
dience  and  faith,  let  us  at  least  resist  our  tempta 
tions,  let  us  enter  into  the  state  of  war  and  wake 
Thor  and  Woden,  courage  and  constancy,  in  our 
Saxon  breasts.  This  is  to  be  done  in  our  smooth 
times  by  speaking  the  truth.  Check  this  lying  hos 
pitality  and  lying  affection.  Live  no  longer  to  the 
expectation  of  these  deceived  and  deceiving  people 
with  whom  we  converse.  Say  to  them,  O  father, 

0  mother,  O  wife,  O  brother,  O  friend,  I  have  lived 
with  you  after  appearances  hitherto.     Henceforward 

1  am  the  truth's.     Be  it  known  unto  you  that  hence 
forward  I  obey  no  law   less   than   the   eternal  law. 
I  will  have  no  covenants   but  proximities.     I   shall 


SELF-RELIANCE.  55 

endeavor  to  nourish  my  parents,  to  support  my  fam 
ily,  to  be  the  chaste  husband  of  one  wife,  —  but 
these  relations  I  must  fill  after  a  new  and  unprece 
dented  way.  I  appeal  from  your  customs.  I  must 
be  myself.  I  cannot  break  myself  any  longer  for 
you,  or  you.  If  you  can  love  me  for  what  I  am, 
we  shall  be  happier.  If  you  cannot,  I  will  still  seek 
to  deserve  that  you  should.  I  must  be  myself.  I 
will  not  hide  my  tastes  or  aversions.  I  will  so  trust 
that  what  is  deep  is  holy,  that  I  will  do  strongly 
before  the  sun  and  moon  whatever  inly  rejoices  me 
and  the  heart  appoints.  If  you  are  noble,  I  will 
love  you ;  if  you  are  not,  I  will  not  hurt  you 
and  myself  by  hypocritical  attentions.  If  you  are 
true,  but  not  in,  the  same  truth  with  me,  cleave 
to  your  companions  ;  I  will  seek  my  own.  I  do  this 
not  selfishly  but  humbly  and  truly.  It  is  alike  your 
interest,  and  mine,  and  all  men's,  however  long  we 
have  dwelt  in  lies,  to  live  in  truth.  Does  this  sound 
harsh  to-day?  You  will  soon  love  what  is  dictated 
by  your  nature  as  well  as  mine,  and  if  we  follow  the 
truth  it  will  bring  us  out  safe  at  last.  —  But  so  may 
you  give  these  friends  pain.  Yes,  but  I  cannot  sell 
my  liberty  and  my  power,  to  save  their  sensibility. 
Besides,  all  persons  have  their  moments  of  reason, 
when  they  look  out  into  the  region  of  absolute  truth; 
then  will  they  justify  me  and  do  the  same  thing. 

The  populace  think  that  your  rejection  of  popu 
lar  standards  is  a  rejection  of  all  standard,  and  mere 
antinomianism ;  and  the  bold  sensualist  will  use 
the  name  of  philosophy  to  gild  his  crimes.  But 
the  law  of  consciousness  abides.  There  are  two 


56  SELF-RELIANCE. 

confessionals,  in  one  or  the  other  of  which  we  must 
be  shriven.  You  may  fulfil  your  round  of  duties 
by  clearing  yourself  in  the  direct,  or  in  the  reflex 
way.  Consider  whether  you  have  satisfied  your  re 
lations  to  father,  mother,  cousin,  neighbor,  town, 
cat  and  dog ;  whether  any  of  these  can  upbraid 
you.  But  I  may  also  neglect  this  reflex  standard 
and  absolve  me  to  myself.  I  have  my  own  stern 
claims  and  perfect  circle.  It  denies  the  name  of 
duty  to  many  offices  that  are  called  duties.  But  if 
I  can  discharge  its  debts  it  enables  me  to  dispense 
with  the  popular  code.  If  any  one  imagines  that 
this  law  is  lax,  let  him  keep  its  commandment  one 
day. 

And  truly  it  demands  something  godlike  in  him 
who  has  cast  off  the  common  motives  of  humanity 
and  has  ventured  to  trust  himself  for  a  task-master. 
High  be  his  heart,  faithful  his  will,  clear  his  sight, 
that  he  may  in  good  earnest  be  doctrine,  society, 
law,  to  himself,  that  a  simple  purpose  may  be  to 
him  as  strong  as  iron  necessity  is  to  others. 

If  any  man  consider  the  present  aspects  of  what 
is  called  by  distinction  society,  he  will  see  the  need 
of  these  ethics.  The  sinew  and  heart  of  man  seem 
to  be  drawn  out,  and  we  are  become  timorous  de 
sponding  whimperers.  We  are  afraid  of  truth,  afraid 
of  fortune,  afraid  of  death,  and  afraid  of  each  other. 
Our  age  yields  no  great  and  perfect  persons.  We 
want  men  and  women  who  shall  renovate  life  and 
our  social  state,  but  we  see  that  most  natures  are 
insolvent;  cannot  satisfy  their  own  wants,  have  an 
ambition  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  practical  force, 


SELF-RELIANCE.  5  7 

and  so  do  lean  and  beg  day  and  night  continually. 
Our  housekeeping  is  mendicant,  our  arts,  our  occu 
pations,  our  marriages,  our  religion  we  have  not 
chosen,  but  society  has  chosen  for  us.  We  are  par 
lor  soldiers.  The  rugged  battle  of  fate,  where 
strength  is  born,  we  shun. 

If  our  young  men  miscarry  in  their  first  enter 
prises  they  lose  all  heart.  If  the  young  merchant 
fails,  men  say  he  is  ruined.  If  the  finest  genius 
studies  at  one  of  our  colleges,  and  is  not  installed  in 
an  office  within  one  year  afterwards,  in  the  cities  or 
suburbs  of  Boston  or  New  York,  it  seems  to  his 
friends  and  to  himself  that  he  is  right  in  being  dis 
heartened  and  in  complaining  the  rest  of  his  life. 
A  sturdy  lad  from  New  Hampshire  or  Vermont,  who 
in  turn  tries  all  the  professions,  who  teams  it,  farms 
it,  peddles,  keeps  a  school,  preaches,  edits  a  news 
paper,  goes  to  Congress,  buys  a  township,  and  so 
forth,  in  successive  years,  and  always  like  a  cat  falls 
on  his  feet,  is  worth  a  hundred  of  these  city  dolls. 
He  walks  abreast  with  his  days  and  feels  no  shame 
in  not  *  studying  a  profession,1  for  he  does  not  post 
pone  his  life,  but  lives  already.  He  has  not  one 
chance,  but  a  hundred  chances.  Let  a  stoic  arise 
who  shall  reveal  the  resources  of  man  and  tell  men 
they  are  not  leaning  willows,  but  can  and  must  de 
tach  themselves ;  that  with  the  exercise  of  self-trust, 
new  powers  shall  appear ;  that  a  man  is  the  word 
made  flesh,  born  to  shed  healing  to  the  nations, 
that  he  should  be  ashamed  of  our  compassion,  and 
that  the  moment  he  acts  from  himself,  tossing  the 
laws,  the  books,  idolatries  and  customs  out  of  the 


58  SELF-RELIANCE. 

window,  — we  pity  him  no  more  but  thank  and  revere 
him  ;  — and  that  teacher  shall  restore  the  life  of  man 
to  splendor  and  make  his  name  dear  to  all  History. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  a  greater  self-reliance  —  a  new 
respect  for  the  divinity  in  man  —  must  work  a  revolu 
tion  in  all  the  offices  and  relations  of  men ;  in  their 
religion ;  in  their  education ;  in  their  pursuits ;  their 
modes  of  living ;  their  association  ;  in  their  property ; 
in  their  speculative  views. 

i.  In  what  prayers  do  men  allow  themselves! 
That  which  they  call  a  holy  office  is  not  so  much  as 
brave  and  manly.  Prayer  looks  abroad  and  asks  for 
some  foreign  addition  to  come  through  some  foreign 
virtue,  and  loses  itself  in  endless  mazes  of  natural 
and  supernatural,  and  mediatorial  and  miraculous. 
Prayer  that  craves  a  particular  commodity —  anything 
less  than  all  good,  is  vicious.  Prayer  is  the  contem 
plation  of  the  facts  of  life  from  the  highest  point  of 
view.  It  is  the  soliloquy  of  a  beholding  and  jubilant 
soul.  It  is  the  spirit  of  God  pronouncing  his  works 
good.  But  prayer  as  a  means  to  effect  a  private  end 
is  theft  and  meanness.  It  supposes  dualism  and  not 
unity  in  nature  and  consciousness.  As  soon  as  the 
man  is  at  one  with  God,  he  will  not  beg.  He  will 
then  see  prayer  in  all  action.  The  prayer  of  the 
farmer  kneeling  in  his  field  to  weed  it,  the  prayer  of 
the  rower  kneeling  with  the  stroke  of  his  oar,  are  true 
prayers  heard  throughout  nature,  though  for  cheap 
ends.  Caratach,  in  Fletcher's  Bonduca,  when  admon 
ished  to  inquire  the  mind  of  the  god  Audate,  replies, 

His  hidden. meaning  lies  in  our  endeavors; 
Our  valors  are  our  best  gods. 


SELF-RELIANCE.  59 

Another  sort  of  false  prayers  are  our  regrets.  Dis 
content  is  the  want  of  self-reliance :  it  is  infirmity  of 
will.  Regret  calamities  if  you  can  thereby  help  the 
sufferer;  if  not,  attend  your  own  work  and  already 
the  evil  begins  to  be  repaired.  Our  sympathy  is  just 
as  base.  We  come  to  them  who  weep  foolishly  and 
sit  down  and  cry  for  company,  instead  of  imparting 
to  them  truth  and  health  in  rough  electric  shocks, 
putting  them  once  more  in  communication  with  the 
soul.  The  secret  of  fortune  is  joy  in  our  hands. 
Welcome  evermore  to  gods  and  men  is  the  self-help 
ing  man.  For  him  all  doors  are  flung  wide.  Him 
all  tongues  greet,  all  honors  crown,  all  eyes  follow 
with  desire.  Our  love  goes  out  to  him  and  embraces 
him  because  he  did  not  need  it.  We  solicitiously 
and  apologetically  caress  and  celebrate  him  because 
he  held  on  his  way  and  scorned  our  disapprobation. 
The  gods  love  him  because  men  hated  him.  "To 
the  persevering  mortal,"  said  Zoroaster,  "the  blessed 
Immortals  are  swift." 

As  men's  prayers  are  a  disease  of  the  will,  so  are 
their  creeds  a  disease  of  the  intellect.  They  say 
with  those  foolish  Israelites,  '  Let  not  God  speak  to 
us,  lest  we  die.  Speak  thou,  speak  any  man  with  us, 
and  we  will  obey.'  Everywhere  I  am  bereaved  of 
meeting  God  in  my  brother,  because  he  has  shut  his 
own  temple  doors  and  recites  fables  merely  of  his 
brother's,  or  his  brother's  brother's  God.  Every  new 
mind  is  a  new  classification.  If  it  prove  a  mind  of 
uncommon  activity  and  power,  a  Locke,  a  Lavoisier, 
a  Hutton,  a  Bentham,  a  Spurzheim,  it  imposes  its 
classification  on  other  men,  and  lo!  a  new  system. 


60  SELF-RELIANCE. 

In  proportion  always  to  the  depth  of  the  thought, 
and  so  to  the  number  of  the  objects  it  touches  and 
brings  within  reach  of  the  pupil,  is  his  complacency. 
But  chiefly  is  this  apparent  in  creeds  and  churches, 
which  are  also  classifications  of  some  powerful  mind 
acting  on  the  great  elemental  thought  of  Duty  and 
man's  relation  to  the  Highest.  Such  is  Calvinism, 
Quakerism,  Swedenborgianism.  The  pupil  takes 
the  same  delight  in  subordinating  every  thing  to  the 
new  terminology  that  a  girl  does  who  has  just  learned 
botany  in  seeing  a  new  earth  and  new  seasons 
thereby.  It  will  happen  for  a  time  that  the  pupil 
will  feel  a  real  debt  to  the  teacher  —  will  find  his 
intellectual  power  has  grown  by  the  study  of  his 
writings.  This  will  continue  until  he  has  exhausted 
his  master's  mind.  But  in  all  unbalanced  minds  the 
classification  is  idolized,  passes  for  the  end  and  not 
for  a  speedily  exhaustible  means,  so  that  the  walls  of 
the  system  blend  to  their  eye  in  the  remote  horizon 
with  the  walls  of  the  universe ;  the  luminaries  of 
heaven  seem  to  them  hung  on  the  arch  their  master 
built.  They  cannot  imagine  how  you  aliens  have 
any  right  to  see  —  how  you  can  see;  'It  must  be 
somehow  that  you  stole  the  light  from  us.'  They 
do  not  yet  perceive  that  light,  unsystematic,  indom 
itable,  will  break  into  any  cabin,  even  into  theirs. 
Let  them  chirp  awhile  and  call  it  their  own.  If  they 
are  honest  and  do  well,  presently  their  neat  new  pin 
fold  will  be  too  strait  and  low,  will  crack,  will  lean, 
will  rot  and  vanish,  and  the  immortal  light,  all  young 
and  joyful,  million-orbed,  million-colored,  will  beam 
over  the  universe  as  on  the  first  morning. 


SELF-RELIANCE.  6 1 

2.  It  is  for  want  of  self-culture  that  the  idol  of 
Travelling,  the  idol  of  Italy,  of  England,  of  Egypt, 
remains  for  all  educated  Americans.  They  who 
made  England,  Italy,  or  Greece  venerable  in  the 
imagination,  did  so  not  by  rambling  round  creation 
as  a  moth  round  a  lamp,  but  by  sticking  fast  where 
they  were,  like  an  axis  of  the  earth.  In  manly  hours 
we  feel  that  duty  is  our  place  and  that  the  merry 
men  of  circumstance  should  follow  as  they  may. 
The  soul  is  no  traveller :  the  wise  man  stays  at  home 
with  the  soul,  and  when  his  necessities,  his  duties, 
on  any  occasion  call  him  from  his  house,  or  into 
foreign  lands,  he  is  at  home  still  and  is  not  gadding 
abroad  from  himself,  and  shall  make  men  sensible 
by  the  expression  of  his  countenance  that  he  goes, 
the  missionary  of  wisdom  and  virtue,  and  visits  cities 
and  men  like  a  sovereign  and  not  like  an  interloper 
or  a  valet. 

I  have  no  churlish  objection  to  the  circumnaviga 
tion  of  the  globe  for  the  purposes  of  art,  of  study, 
and  benevolence,  so  that  the  man  is  first  domesti 
cated,  or  does  not  go  abroad  with  the  hope  of  find 
ing  somewhat  greater  than  he  knows.  He  who 
travels  to  be  amused  or  to  get  somewhat  which  he 
does  not  carry,  travels  away  from  himself,  and  grows 
old  even  in  youth  among  old  things.  In  Thebes, 
in  Palmyra,  his  will  and  mind  have  become  old  and 
dilapidated  as  they.  He  carries  ruins  to  ruins. 

Travelling  is  a  fooPs  paradise.  We  owe  to  our 
first  journeys  the  discovery  that  place  is  nothing. 
At  home  I  dream  that  at  Naples,  at  Rome,  I  can  be 
intoxicated  with  beauty  and  lose  my  sadness..  I 


62  SELF-RELIANCE. 

pack  my  trunk,  embrace  my  friends,  embark  on  the 
sea  and  at  last  wake  up  in  Naples,  and  there  beside 
me  is  the  stern  Fact,  the  sad  self,  unrelenting,  iden 
tical,  that  I  fled  from.  I  seek  the  Vatican  and  the 
palaces.  I  affect  to  be  intoxicated  with  sights  and 
suggestions,  but  I  am  not  intoxicated.  My  giant 
goes  with  me  wherever  I  go. 

3.  But  the  rage  of  travelling  is  itself  only  a  symp 
tom  of  a  deeper  unsoundness  affecting  the  whole 
intellectual  action.  The  intellect  is  vagabond,  and 
the  universal  system  of  education  fosters  restlessness. 
Our  minds  travel  when  our  bodies  are  forced  to  stay 
at  home.  We  imitate  ;  and  what  is  imitation  but  the 
travelling  of  the  mind?  Our  houses  are  built  with 
foreign  taste ;  our  shelves  are  garnished  with  foreign 
ornaments ;  our  opinions,  our  tastes,  our  whole 
minds,  lean,  and  follow  the  Past  and  the  Distant, 
as  the  eyes  of  a  maid  follow  her  mistress.  The  soul 
created  the  arts  wherever  they  have  flourished.  It 
was  in  his  own  mind  that  the  artist  sought  his  model. 
It  was  an  application  of  his  own  thought  to  the  thing 
to  be  done  and  the  conditions  to  be  observed.  And 
why  need  we  copy  the  Doric  or  the  Gothic  model? 
Beauty,  convenience,  grandeur  of  thought  and  quaint 
expression  are  as  near  to  us  as  to  any,  and  if  the 
American  artist  will  study  with  hope  and  love  the 
precise  thing  to  be  done  by  him,  considering  the  cli 
mate,  the  soil,  the  length  of  the  day,  the  wants  of 
the  people,  the  habit  and  form  of  the  government,  he 
will  create  a  house  in  which  all  these  will  find  them 
selves  fitted,  and  taste  and  sentiment  will  be  satisfied 
also. 


SELF-RELIANCE.  63 

Insist  on  yourself;  never  imitate.  Your  own  gift 
you  can  present  every  moment  with  the  cumulative 
force  of  a  whole  life's  cultivation  ;  but  of  the  adopted 
talent  of  another  you  have  only  an  extemporaneous 
half  possession.  That  which  each  can  do  best,  none 
but  his  Maker  can  teach  him.  No  man  yet  knows 
what  it  is,  nor  can,  till  that  person  has  exhibited  it. 
Where  is  the  master  who  could  have  taught  Shaks- 
peare?  Where  is  the  master  who  could  have  in 
structed  Franklin,  or  Washington,  or  Bacon,  or 
Newton?  Every  great  man  is  an  unique.  The 
Scipionism  of  Scipio  is  precisely  that  part  he  could 
not  borrow.  If  anybody  will  tell  me  whom  the  great 
man  imitates  in  the  original  crisis  when  he  performs 
a  great  act,  I  will  tell  him  who  else  than  himself  can 
teach  him.  Shakspeare  will  never  be  made  by  the 
study  of  Shakspeare.  Do  that  which  is  assigned 
thee  and  thou  canst  not  hope  too  much  or  dare  too 
much.  There  is  at  this  moment,  there  is  for  me  an 
utterance  bare  and  grand  as  that  of  the  colossal  chisel 
of  Phidias,  or  trowel  of  the  Egyptians,  or  the  pen  of 
Moses  or  Dante,  but  different  from  all  these.  Not 
possibly  will  the  soul,  all  rich,  all  eloquent,  with 
thousand-cloven  tongue,  deign  to  repeat  itself;  but 
if  I  can  hear  what  these  patriarchs  say,  surely  I  can 
reply  to  them  in  the  same  pitch  of  voice ;  for  the  ear 
and  the  tongue  are  two  organs  of  one  nature.  Dwell 
up  there  in  the  simple  and  noble  regions  of  thy  life, 
obey  thy  heart  and  thou  shalt  reproduce  the  Foreworld 
again. 

4.  As  our  Religion,  our  Education,  our  Art  look 
abroad,  so  does  our  spirit  of  society.  All  men  plume 


64  SELF-RELIANCE. 

themselves  on  the  improvement  of  society,  and  no 
man  improves. 

Society  never  advances.  It  recedes  as  fast  on  one 
side  as  it  gains  on  the  other.  Its  progress  is  only 
apparent  like  the  workers  of  a  treadmill.  It  under 
goes  continual  changes ;  it  is  barbarous,  it  is  civil 
ized,  it  is  christianized,  it  is  rich,  it  is  scientific ;  but 
this  change  is  not  amelioration.  For  every  thing 
that  is  given  something  is  taken.  Society  acquires 
new  arts  and  loses  old  instincts.  What  a  contrast 
between  the  well-clad,  reading,  writing,  thinking 
American,  with  a  watch,  a  pencil  and  a  bill  of  ex 
change  in  his  pocket,  and  the  naked  New  Zealander, 
whose  property  is  a  club,  a  spear,  a  mat  and  an  undi 
vided  twentieth  of  a  shed  to  sleep  under.  But  com 
pare  the  health  of  the  two  men  and  you  shall  see  that 
his  aboriginal  strength,  the  white  man  ^as  lost.  If 
the  traveller  tell  us  truly,  strike  the  savage  with  a 
broad  axe  and  in  a  day  or  two  the  flesh  shall  unite 
and  heal  as  if  you  struck  the  blow  into  soft  pitch,  and 
the  same  blow  shall  send  the  white  to  his  grave. 

The  civilized  man  has  built  a  coach,  but  has  lost 
the  use  of  his  feet.  He  is  supported  on  crutches,  but 
lacks  so  much  support  of  muscle.  He  has  got  a  fine 
Geneva  watch,  but  he  has  lost  the  skill  to  tell  the 
hour  by  the  sun.  A  Greenwich  nautical  almanac  he 
has,  and  so  being  sure  of  the  information  when  he 
wants  it,  the  man  in  the  street  does  not  know  a  star 
in  the  sky.  The  solstice  he  does  not  observe ;  the 
equinox  he  knows  as  little ;  and  the  whole  bright 
calendar  of  the  year  is  without  a  dial  in  his  mind. 
His  note-books  impair  his  memory  ;  his  libraries 


SELF-RELIANCE.  65 

overload  his  wit;  the  insurance-office  increases  the 
number  of  accidents ;  and  it  may  be  a  question 
whether  machinery  does  not  encumber ;  whether  we 
have  not  lost  by  refinement  some  energy,  by  a 
Christianity  entrenched  in  establishments  and  forms 
some  vigor  of  wild  virtue.  For  every  stoic  was  a 
stoic;  but  in  Christendom  where  is  the  Christian? 

There  is  no  more  deviation  in  the  moral  standard 
than  in  the  standard  of  height  or  bulk.  No  greater 
men  are  now  than  ever  were.  A  singular  equality 
may  be  observed  between  the  great  men  of  the  first 
and  of  the  last  ages;  nor  can  all  the  science,  art, 
religion,  and  philosophy  of  the  nineteenth  century 
avail  to  educate  greater  men  than  Plutarch's  heroes, 
three  or  four  and  twenty  centuries  ago.  Not  in  time 
is  the  race  progressive.  Phocion,  Socrates,  Anax- 
agoras,  Diogenes,  are  great  men,  but  they  leave  no 
class.  He  who  is  really  of  their  class  will  not  be 
called  by  their  name,  but  be  wholly  his  own  man,  and 
in  his  turn  the  founder  of  a  sect.  The  arts  and  in 
ventions  of  each  period  are  only  its  costume  and  do 
not  invigorate  men.  The  harm  of  the  improved 
machinery  may  compensate  its  good.  Hudson  and 
Behring  accomplished  so  much  in  their  fishing-boats 
as  to  astonish  Parry  and  Franklin,  whose  equipment 
exhausted  the  resources  of  science  and  art.  Galileo, 
with  an  opera-glass,  discovered  a  more  splendid  series 
of  facts  than  any  one  since.  Columbus  found  the 
New  World  in  an  undecked  boat.  It  is  curious  to 
see  the  periodical  disuse  and  perishing  of  means  and 
machinery  which  were  introduced  with  loud  laudation 
a  few  years  or  centuries  before.  The  great  genius 


66  SELF-RELIANCE. 

returns  to  essential  man.  We  reckoned  the  improve 
ments  of  the  art  of  war  among  the  triumphs  of  sci 
ence,  and  yet  Napoleon  conquered  Europe  by  the 
Bivouac,  which  consisted  of  falling  back  on  naked 
valor  and  disencumbering  it  of  all  aids.  The  Em 
peror  held  it  impossible  to  make  a  perfect  army,  says 
Las  Cases,  "  without  abolishing  our  arms,  magazines, 
commissaries  and  carriages,  until,  in  imitation  of  the 
Roman  custom,  the  soldier  should  receive  his  supply 
of  corn,  grind  it  in  his  hand-mill  and  bake  his  bread 
himself." 

Society  is  a  wave.  The  wave  moves  onward,  but 
the  water  of  which  it  is  composed  does  not.  The 
same  particle  does  not  rise  from  the  valley  to  the 
ridge.  Its  unity  is  only  phenomenal.  The  persons 
who  make  up  a  nation  to-day,  die,  and  their  experi 
ence  with  them. 

And  so  the  reliance  on  Property,  including  the 
reliance  on  governments  which  protect  it,  is  the 
want  of  self-reliance.  Men  have  looked  away  from 
themselves  and  at  things  so  long  that  they  have  come 
to  esteem  what  they  call  the  soul's  progress,  namely, 
the  religious,  learned  and  civil  institutions  as  guards 
of  property,  and  they  deprecate  assaults  on  these, 
because  they  feel  them  to  be  assaults  on  property. 
They  measure  their  esteem  of  each  other  by  what 
each  has,  and  not  by  what  each  is.  But  a  cultivated 
man  becomes  ashamed  of  his  property,  ashamed  of 
what  he  has,  out  of  new  respect  for  his  being.  Espe 
cially  he  hates  what  he  has  if  he  see  that  it  is  acci 
dental, —  came  to  him  by  inheritance,  or  gift,  or 
crime;  then  he  feels  that  it  is  not  having;  it  does 


SELF-RELIANCE.  67 

not  belong  to  him,  has  no  root  in  him,  and  merely 
lies  there  because  no  revolution  or  no  robber  takes 
it  away.  But  that  which  a  man  is,  does  always  by 
necessity  acquire,  and  what  the  man  acquires,  is  per 
manent  and  living  property,  which  does  not  wait  the 
beck  of  rulers,  or  mobs,  or  revolutions,  or  fire,  or 
storm,  or  bankruptcies,  but  perpetually  renews  itself 
wherever  the  man  is  put.  "  Thy  lot  or  portion  of 
life,"  said  the  Caliph  Ali,  "is  seeking  after  thee ; 
therefore  be  at  rest  from  seeking  after  it."  Our 
dependence  on  these  foreign  goods  leads  us  to  our 
slavish  respect  for  numbers.  The  political  parties 
meet  in  numerous  conventions ;  the  greater  the  con 
course  and  with  each  new  uproar  of  announcement, 
The  delegation  from  Essex !  The  Democrats  from 
New  Hampshire  !  The  Whigs  of  Maine  !  the  young 
patriot  feels  himself  stronger  than  before  by  a  new 
thousand  of  eyes  and  arms.  In  like  manner  the 
reformers  summon  conventions  and  vote  and  resolve 
in  multitude.  But  not  so  O  friends  !  will  the  God 
deign  to  enter  and  inhabit  you,  but  by  a  method  pre 
cisely  the  reverse.  It  is  only  as  a  man  puts  off  from 
himself  all  external  support  and  stands  alone  that  I 
see  him  to  be  strong  and  to  prevail.  He  is  weaker 
by  every  recruit  to  his  banner.  Is  not  a  man  better 
than  a  town?  Ask  nothing  of  men,  and,  in  the  end 
less  mutation,  thou  only  firm  column  must  presently 
appear  the  upholder  of  all  that  surrounds  thee.  He 
who  knows  that  power  is  in  the  soul,  that  he  is  weak 
only  because  he  has  looked  for  good  out  of  him  and 
elsewhere,  and,  so  perceiving,  throws  himself  unhesi 
tatingly  on  his  thought,  instantly  rights  himself, 


68  SELF-RELIANCE. 

stands  in  the  erect  position,  commands  his  limbs, 
works  miracles ;  just  as  a  man  who  stands  on  his  feet 
is  stronger  than  a  man  who  stands  on  his  head. 

So  use  all  that  is  called  Fortune.  Most  men 
gamble  with  her,  and  gain  all,  and  lose  all,  as  her 
wheel  rolls.  But  do  thou  leave  as  unlawful  these 
winnings,  and  deal  with  Cause  and  Effect,  the  chan 
cellors  of  God.  In  the  Will  work  and  acquire,  and 
thou  hast  chained  the  wheel  of  Chance,  and  shalt 
always  drag  her  after  thee.  A  political  victory,  a  rise 
of  rents,  the  recovery  of  your  sick  or  the  return  of 
your  absent  friend,  or  some  other  quite  external 
event  raises  your  spirits,  and  you  think  good  days 
are  preparing  for  you.  Do  not  believe  it.  It  can 
never  be  so.  Nothing  can  bring  you  peace  but 
yourself.  Nothing  can  bring  you  peace  but  the 
triumph  of  principles. 


ESSAY   III. 

COMPENSATION. 

EVER  since  I  was  a  boy  I  have  wished  to  write  a 
discourse  on  Compensation ;  for  it  seemed  to  me 
when  very  young  that  on  this  subject  Life  was 
ahead  of  theology  and  the  people  knew  more  than 
the  preachers  taught.  The  documents  too  from 
which  the  doctrine  is  to  be  drawn,  charmed  my 
fancy  by  their  endless  variety,  and  lay  always  before 
me,  even  in  sleep ;  for  they  are  the  tools  in  our 
hands,  the  bread  in  our  basket,  the  transactions  of 
the  street,  the  farm  and  the  dwelling-house ;  the 
greetings,  the  relations,  the  debts  and  credits,  the 
influence  of  character,  the  nature  and  endowment 
of  all  men.  It  seemed  to  me  also  that  in  it  might 
be  shown  men  a  ray  of  divinity,  the  present  action 
of  the  Soul  of  this  world,  clean  from  all  vestige  of 
tradition ;  and  so  the  heart  of  man  might  be  bathed 
by  an  inundation  of  eternal  love,  conversing  with 
that  which  he  knows  was  always  and  always  must 
be,  because  it  really  is  now.  It  appeared  moreover 
that  if  this  doctrine  could  be  stated  in  terms  with 
any  resemblance  to  those  bright  intuitions  in  which 
this  truth  is  sometimes  revealed  to  us,  it  would  be  a 

69 


70  COMPENSATION. 

star  in  many  dark  hours  and  crooked  passages  in  our 
journey,  that  would  not  suffer  us  to  lose  our  way. 

I  was  lately  confirmed  in  these  desires  by  hearing 
a  sermon  at  church.  The  preacher,  a  man  esteemed 
for  his  orthodoxy,  unfolded  in  the  ordinary  manner 
the  doctrine  of  the  Last  Judgment.  He  assumed 
that  judgment  is  not  executed  in  this  world  ;  that  the 
wicked  are  successful ;  that  the  good  are  misera 
ble  ;  and  then  urged  from  reason  and  from  Script 
ure  a  compensation  to  be  made  to  both  parties  in 
the  next  life.  No  offence  appeared  to  be  taken  by 
the  congregation  at  this  doctrine.  As  far  as  I  could 
observe  when  the  meeting  broke  up  they  separated 
without  remark  on  the  sermon. 

Yet  what  was  the  import  of  this  teaching  ?  What 
did  the  preacher  mean  by  saying  that  the  good  are 
miserable  in  the  present  life  ?  Was  it  that  houses 
and  lands,  offices,  wine,  horses,  dress,  luxury,  are 
had  by  unprincipled  men,  whilst  the  saints  are  poor 
and  despised ;  and  that  a  compensation  is  to  be  made 
to  these  last  hereafter,  by  giving  them  the  like  grati 
fications  another  day,  —  bank-stock  and  doubloons, 
venison  and  champagne  ?  This  must  be  the  com 
pensation  intended;  for  what  else  ?  Is  it  that  they 
are  to  have  leave  to  pray  and  praise  ?  to  love  and 
serve  men  ?  Why,  that  they  can  do  now.  The 
legitimate  inference  the  disciple  would  draw  was, 
*  We  are  to  have  such  a  good  time  as  the  sinners 
have  now1  ;  —  or,  to  push  it  to  its  extreme  import, 
—  *  You  sin  now,  we  shall  sin  by-and-by ;  we  would 
sin  now,  if  we  could ;  not  being  successful  we  ex 
pect  our  revenge  tomorrow.' 


COM  PENS  A  TION.  7 1 

The  fallacy  lay  in  the  immense  concession  that  the 
bad  are  successful ;  that  justice  is  not  done  now. 
The  blindness  of  the  preacher  consisted  in  deferring 
to  the  base  estimate  of  the  market  of  what  consti 
tutes  a  manly  success,  instead  of  confronting  and 
convicting  the  world  from  the  truth ;  announcing  the 
Presence  of  the  Soul ;  the  omnipotence  of  the  Will ; 
and  so  establishing  the  standard  of  good  and  ill,  of 
success  and  falsehood,  and  summoning  the  dead  to 
its  present  tribunal. 

I  find  a  similar  base  tone  in  the  popular  religious 
works  of  the  day  and  the  same  doctrines  assumed  by 
the  literary  men  when  occasionally  they  treat  the 
related  topics.  I  think  that  our  popular  theology 
has  gained  in  decorum,  and  not  in  principle,  over 
the  superstitions  it -has  displaced.  But  men  are  bet 
ter  than  this  theology.  Their  daily  life  gives  it  the 
lie.  Every  ingenuous  and  aspiring  soul  leaves  the 
doctrine  behind  him  in  his  own  experience,  and  all 
men  feel  sometimes  the  falsehood  which  they  cannot 
demonstrate.  For  men  are  wiser  than  they  know. 
That  which  they  hear  in  schools  and  pulpits  without 
afterthought,  if  said  in  conversation  would  probably 
be  questioned  in  silence.  If  a  man  dogmatize  in  a 
mixed  company  on  Providence  and  the  divine  laws,  he 
is  answered  by  a  silence  which  conveys  well  enough 
to  an  observer  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  hearer,  but 
his  incapacity  to  make  his  own  statement. 

I  shall  attempt  in  this  and  the  following  chapter  to 
record  some  facts  that  indicate  the  path  of  the  law  of 
Compensation;  happy  beyond  my  expectation  if  I 
shall  truly  draw  the  smallest  arc  of  this  circle. 


7  2  COMPENSA  TION. 

POLARITY,  or  action  and  reaction,  we  meet  in 
every  part  of  nature ;  in  darkness  and  light,  in  heat 
and  cold ;  in  the  ebb  and  flow  of  waters ;  in  male 
and  female ;  in  the  inspiration  and  expiration  of 
plants  and  animals ;  in  the  systole  and  diastole  of 
the  heart ;  in  the  undulations  of  fluids  and  of  sound  ; 
in  the  centrifugal  and  centripetal  gravity  ;  in  electric 
ity,  galvanism,  and  chemical  affinity.  Superinduce 
magnetism  at  one  end  of  a  needle,  the  opposite  mag 
netism  takes  place  at  the  other  end.  If  the  south 
attracts,  the  north  repels.  To  empty  here,  you  must 
condense  there.  An  inevitable  dualism  bisects  na 
ture,  so  that  each  thing  is  a  half,  and  suggests 
another  thing  to  make  it  whole;  as,  spirit,  matter; 
man,  woman;  subjective,  objective;  in,  out;  upper, 
under  ;  motion,  re°:t ;  yea,  nay. 

Whilst  the  world  is  thus  dual,  so  is*  every  one  of 
its  parts.  The  entire  system  of  things  gets  repre 
sented  in  every  particle.  There  is  somewhat  that 
resembles  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea,  day  and  night, 
man  and  woman,  in  a  single  needle  of  the  pine,  in 
a  kernel  of  corn,  in  each,  individual  of  every  animal 
tribe.  The  reaction,  so  grand  in  the  elements,  is 
repeated  within  these  small  boundaries.  For  exam 
ple,  in  the  animal  kingdom  the  physiologist  has  ob 
served  that  no  creatures  are  favorites,  but  a  certain 
compensation  balances  every  gift  and  every  defect. 
A  surplusage  given  to  one  part  is  paid  out  of  a  reduc 
tion  from  another  part  of  the  same  creature.  If  the 
head  and  neck  are  enlarged,  the  trunk  and  extremi 
ties  are  cut  short. 

The  theory  of  the  mechanic  forces  is  another  ex- 


COMPENSA  TION.  7  3 

ample.  What  we  gain  in  power  is  lost  in  time,  and 
the  converse.  The  periodic  or  compensating  errors 
of  the  planets  is  another  instance.  The  influences 
of  climate  and  soil  in  political  history  are  another. 
The  cold  climate  invigorates.  The  barren  soil  does 
not  breed  fevers,  crocodiles,  tigers,  or  scorpions. 

The  same  dualism  underlies  the  nature  and  con 
dition  of  man.  Every  excess  causes  a  defect ;  every 
defect  an  excess.  Every  sweet  hath  its  sour;  every 
evil  its  good.  Every  faculty  which  is  a  receiver  of 
pleasure  has  an  equal  penalty  put  on  its  abuse.  It 
is  to  answer  for  its  moderation  with  its  life.  For 
every  grain  of  wit  there  is  a  grain  of  folly.  For 
every  thing  you  have  missed,  you  have  gained  some 
thing  else ;  and  for  every  thing  you  gain,  you  lose 
something.  If  riches  increase,  they  are  increased 
that  use  them.  If  the  gatherer  gathers  too  much, 
nature  takes  out  of  the  man  what  she  puts  into  his 
chest ;  swells  the  estate,  but  kills  the  owner.  Na 
ture  hates  monopolies  and  exceptions.  The  waves 
of  the  sea  do  not  more  speedily  seek  a  level  from 
their  loftiest  tossing  than  the  varieties  of  condition 
tend  to  equalize  themselves.  There  is  always  some 
levelling  circumstance  that  puts  down  the  overbear 
ing,  the  strong,  the  rich,  the  fortunate,  substantially 
on  the  same  ground  with  all  others.  Is  a  man  too 
strong  and  fierce  for  society  and  by  temper  and 
position  a  bad  citizen, — a  morose  ruffian,  with  a 
dash  of  the  pirate  in  him  ?  —  nature  sends  him  a 
troop  of  pretty  sons  and  daughters  who  are  getting 
along  in  the  dame's  classes  at  the  village  school,  and 
love  and  fear  for  them  smooths  his  grim  scowl  to 


74  COMPENSA  TION. 

courtesy.  Thus  she  contrives  to  intenerate  the  gran 
ite  and  felspar,  takes  the  boar  out  and  puts  the  lamb 
in  and  keeps  her  balance  true. 

The  farmer  imagines  power  and  place  are  fine 
things.  But  the  President  has  paid  dear  for  his 
White  House.  It  has  commonly  cost  him  all  his 
peace,  and  the  best  of  his  manly  attributes.  To 
preserve  for  a  short  time  so  conspicuous  an  appear 
ance  before  the  world,  he  is  content  to  eat  dust  be 
fore  the  real  masters  who  stand  erect  behind  the 
throne.  Or  do  men  desire  the  more  substantial  and 
permanent  grandeur  of  genius?  Neither  has  this 
an  immunity.  He  who  by  force  of  will  or  of  thought 
is  great  and  overlooks  thousands,  has  the  responsi 
bility  of  overlooking.  With  every  influx  of  light 
comes  new  danger.  Has  he  light?  he  must  bear 
witness  to  the  light,  and  always  outrun  that  sym 
pathy  which  gives  him  such  keen  satisfaction,  by 
his  fidelity  to  new  revelations  of  the  incessant  soul. 
He  must  hate  father  and  mother,  wife  and  child. 
Has  he  all  that  the  world  loves  and  admires  and 
covets?  —  he  must  cast  behind  him  their  admiration 
and  afflict  them  by  faithfulness  to  his  truth  and  be 
come  a  byword  and  a  hissing. 

This  Law  writes  the  laws  of  the  cities  and  nations. 
It  will  not  be  baulked  of  its  end  in  the  smallest  iota. 
It  is  in  vain  to  build  or  plot  or  combine  against  it. 
Things  refuse  to  be  mismanaged  long.  Res  nolunt 
diu  male  administrari.  Though  no  checks  to  a  new 
evil  appear,  the  checks  exist,  and  will  appear.  If 
the  government  is  cruel,  the  governor's  life  is  not 
safe.  If  you  tax  too  high,  the  revenue  will  yield 


COM  PENS  A  TION.  7  5 

nothing.  If  you  make  the  criminal  code  sanguinary, 
juries  will  not  convict.  Nothing  arbitrary,  nothing 
artificial  can  endure.  The  true  life  and  satisfactions 
of  man  seem  to  elude  the  utmost  rigors  or  felicities 
of  condition  and  to  establish  themselves  with  great 
indifferency  under  all  varieties  of  circumstance.  Un 
der  all  governments  the  influence  of  character  remains 
the  same, — in  Turkey  and  New  England  about 
alike.  Under  the  primeval  despots  of  Egypt,  history 
honestly  confesses  that  man  must  have  been  as  free 
as  culture  could  make  him. 

These  appearances  indicate  the  fact  that  the  uni 
verse  is  represented  in  every  one  of  its  particles. 
Every  thing  in  nature  contains  all  the  powers  of 
nature.  Every  thing  is  made  of  one  hidden  stuff; 
as  the  naturalist  sees  one  type  under  every  meta 
morphosis,  and  regards  a  horse  as  a  running  man, 
a  fish  as  a  swimming  man,  a  bird  as  a  flying  man, 
a  tree  as  a  rooted  man.  Each  new  form  repeats 
not  only  the  main  character  of  the  type,  but  part 
for  part  all  the  details,  all  the  aims,  furtherances, 
hindrances,  energies  and  whole  system  of  every 
other.  Every  occupation,  trade,  art,  transaction,  is 
a  compend  of  the  world  and  a  correlative  of  every 
other.  Each  one  is  an  entire  emblem  of  human  life  ; 
of  its  good  and  ill,  its  trials,  its  enemies,  its  course 
and  its  end.  And  each  one  must  somehow  accom 
modate  the  whole  man  and  recite  all  his  destiny. 

The  world  globes  itself  in  a  drop  of  dew.  The 
microscope  cannot  find  the  animalcule  which  is  less 
perfect  for  being  little.  Eyes,  ears,  taste,  smell, 
motion,  resistance,  appetite,  and  organs  of  reproduc- 


76  COMPENSATION. 

tion  that  take  hold  on  eternity,  —  all  find  room  to 
consist  in  the  small  creature.  So  do  we  put  our 
life  into  every  act.  The  true  doctrine  of  omnipres 
ence  is  that  God  reappears  with  all  his  parts  in  every 
moss  and  cobweb.  The  value  of  the  universe  con 
trives  to  throw  itself  into  every  point.  If  the  good 
is  there,  so  is  the  evil ;  if  the  affinity,  so  the  repul 
sion  ;  if  the  force,  so  the  limitation. 

Thus  is  the  universe  alive.  All  things  are  moral. 
That  soul  which  within  us  is  a  sentiment,  outside 
of  us  is  a  law.  We  feel  its  inspirations  ;  out  there  in 
history  we  can  see  its  fatal  strength.  It  is  almighty. 
All  nature  feels  its  grasp.  **  It  is  in  the  world,  and 
the  world  was  made  by  it."  It  is  eternal  but  it 
enacts  itself  in  time  and  space.  Justice  is  not  post 
poned.  A  perfect  equity  adjusts  its  balance  in  all 
parts  of  life.  Ot  Kv/3ot,  Ai6s  det  evTUTrrovo-i.  The 
dice  of  God  are  always  loaded.  The  world  looks 
like  a  multiplication-table,  or  a  mathematical  equa 
tion,  which,  turn  it  how  you  will,  balances  itself. 
Take  what  figure  you  will,  its  exact  value,  nor  more 
nor  less,  still  returns  to  you.  Every  secret  is  told, 
every  crime  is  punished,  every  virtue  rewarded,  every 
wrong  redressed,  in  silence  and  certainty.  What 
we  call  retribution  is  the  universal  necessity  by  which 
the  whole  appears  wherever  a  part  appears.  If  you 
see  smoke,  there  must  be  fire.  If  you  see  a  hand  or 
a  limb,  you  know  that  the  trunk  to  which  it  belongs 
is  there  behind. 

Every  act  rewards  itself,  or  in  other  words  inte 
grates  itself,  in  a  twofold  manner:  first  in  the  thing, 
or  in  real  nature ;  and  secondly  in  the  circumstance, 


COM  PENS  A  TION.  7  7 

or  in  apparent  nature.  Men  call  the  circumstance  the 
retribution.  The  casual  retribution  is  in  the  thing 
and  is  seen  by  the  soul.  The  retribution  in  the  cir 
cumstance  is  seen  by  the  understanding ;  it  is  insep 
arable  from  the  thing,  but  is  often  spread  over  a  long 
time  and  so  does  not  become  distinct  until  after 
many  years.  The  specific  stripes  may  follow  late 
after  the  offence,  but  they  follow  because  they  accom 
pany  it.  Crime  and  punishment  grow  out  of  one 
stem.  Punishment  is  a  fruit  that  unsuspected  ripens 
within  the  flower  of  the  pleasure  which  concealed  it. 
Cause  and  effect,  means  and  ends,  seed  and  fruit, 
cannot  be  severed ;  for  the  effect  already  blooms  in 
the  cause,  the  end  preexists  in  the  means,  the  fruit 
in  the  seed. 

Whilst  thus  the  world  will  be  whole  and  refuses 
to  be  disparted,  we  seek  to  act  partially,  to  sunder, 
to  appropriate  ;  for  example,  —  to  gratify  the  senses 
we  sever  the  pleasure  of  the  senses  from  the  needs 
of  the  character.  The  ingenuity  of  man  has  been 
dedicated  to  the  solution  of  one  problem,  —  how  to 
detach  the  sensual  sweet,  the  sensual  strong,  the 
sensual  bright,  etc.,  from  the  moral  sweet,  the  moral 
deep,  the  moral  fair ;  that  is,  again,  to  contrive  to 
cut  clean  off  this  upper  surface  so  thin  as  to  leave  it 
bottomless ;  to  get  a  one  end,  without  an  other  end. 
The  soul  says,  Eat ;  the  body  would  feast.  The  soul 
says,  The  man  and  woman  shall  be  one  flesh  and 
one  soul ;  the  body  would  join  the  flesh  only.  The 
soul  says,  Have  dominion  over  all  things  to  the  ends 
of  virtue  ;  the  body  would  have  the  power  over  things 
to  its  own  ends. 


78  COMPENSA  TION. 

The  soul  strives  amain  to  live  and  work  through 
all  things.  It  would  be  the  only  fact.  All  things 
shall  be  added  unto  it,  —  power,  pleasure,  knowl 
edge,  beauty.  The  particular  man  aims  to  be  some 
body ;  to  set  up  for  himself;  to  truck  and  higgle  for 
a  private  good ;  and,  in  particulars,  to  ride  that  he 
may  ride ;  to  dress  that  he  may  be  dressed ;  to  eat 
that  he  may  eat ;  and  to  govern,  that  he  may  be  seen. 
Men  seek  to  be  great ;  they  would  have  offices,  wealth, 
power,  and  fame.  They  think  that  to  be  great  is  to 
get  only  one  side  of  nature,  —  the  sweet,  without  the 
other  side,  —  the  bitter. 

Steadily  is  this  dividing  and  detaching  counter 
acted.  Up  to  this  day  it  must  be  owned  no  projector 
has  had  the  smallest  success.  The  parted  water  re 
unites  behind  our  hand.  Pleasure  is  taken  out  of 
pleasant  things,  profit  out  of  profitable  things,  power 
out  of  strong  things,  the  moment  we  seek  to  separate 
them  from  the  whole.  We  can  no  more  halve  things 
and  get  the  sensual  good,  by  itself,  than  we  can  get 
an  inside  that  shall  have  no  outside,  or  a  light  with 
out  a  shadow.  "  Drive  out  nature  with  a  fork,  she 
comes  running  back." 

Life  invests  itself  with  inevitable  conditions,  which 
the  unwise  seek  to  dodge,  which  one  and  another 
brags  that  he  does  not  know,  brags  that  they  do  not 
touch  him ;  —  but  the  brag  is  on  his  lips,  the  condi 
tions  are  in  his  soul.  If  he  escapes  them  in  one  part 
they  attack  him  in  another  more  vital  part.  If  he 
has  escaped  them  in  form  and  in  the  appearance,  it 
is  because  he  has  resisted  his  life  and  fled  from  him 
self,  and  the  retribution  is  so  much  death.  So  signal 


COMPENSATION.  79 

is  the  failure  of  all  attempts  to  make  this  separation 
of  the  good  from  the  tax,  that  the  experiment  would 
not  be  tried,  —  since  to  try  it  is  to  be  mad,  —  but  for 
the  circumstance  that  when  the  disease  began  in  the 
will,  of  rebellion  and  separation,  the  intellect  is  at 
once  infected,  so  that  the  man  ceases  to  see  God 
whole  in  each  object,  but  is  able  to  see  the  sensual 
allurement  of  an  object  and  not  see  the  sensual  hurt ; 
he  sees  the  mermaid's  head  but  not  the  dragon's  tail, 
and  thinks  he  can  cut  off  that  which  he  would  have 
from  that  which  he  would  not  have.  "  How  secret 
art  thou  who  dwellest  in  the  highest  heavens  in 
silence,  O  thou  only  great  God,  sprinkling  with  an 
unwearied  providence  certain  penal  blindnesses  upon 
such  as  have  unbridled  desires !  "  1 

The  human  soul  is  true  to  these  facts  in  the  paint 
ing  of  fable,  of  history,  of  law,  of  proverbs,  of  con 
versation.  It  finds  a  tongue  in  literature  unawares. 
Thus  the  Greeks  called  Jupiter,  Supreme  Mind ;  but 
having  traditionally  ascribed  to  him  many  base  actions, 
they  involuntarily  made  amends  to  Reason  by  tying 
up  the  hands  of  so  bad  a  god.  He  is  made  as  help 
less  as  a  king  of  England.  Prometheus  knows  one 
secret  which  Jove  must  bargain  for ;  Minerva,  another. 
He  cannot  get  his  own  thunders  ;  Minerva  keeps  the 
key  of  them : 

Of  all  the  gods,  I  only  know  the  keys 

That  ope  the  solid  doors  within  whose  vaults 

His  thunders  sleep. 

A  plain  confession  of  the  in-working  of  the  All  and 

of  its  moral  aim.     The  Indian  mythology  ends  in 

1  St.  Augustine,  Confessions,  B.  I. 


8o  COMPENSA  TION. 

the  same  ethics ;  and  indeed  it  would  seem  impos 
sible  for  any  fable  to  be  invented  and  get  any  cur 
rency  which  was  not  moral.  Aurora  forgot  to  ask 
youth  for  her  lover,  and  though  so  Tithonus  is  im 
mortal,  he  is  old.  Achilles  is  not  quite  invulner 
able  ;  for  Thetis  held  him  by  the  heel  when  she 
dipped  him  in  the  Styx  and  the  sacred  waters  did 
not  wash  that  part.  Siegfried,  in  the  Nibelungen, 
is  not  quite  immortal,  for  a  leaf  fell  on  his  back 
whilst  he  was  bathing  in  the  Dragon's  blood,  and 
that  spot  which  it  covered  is  mortal.  And  so  it 
always  is.  There  is  a  crack  in  every  thing  God  has 
made.  Always  it  would  seem  there  is  this  vindictive 
circumstance  stealing  in  at  unawares  even  into  the 
wild  poesy  in  which  the  human  fancy  attempted  to 
make  bold  holiday  and  to  shake  itself  free  of  the  old 
laws,  —  this  back-stroke,  this  kick  of  the  gun,  certify 
ing  that  the  law  is  fatal ;  that  in  nature  nothing  can 
be  given,  all  things  are  sold. 

This  is  that  ancient  doctrine  of  Nemesis,  who 
keeps  watch  in  the  Universe  and  lets  no  offence  go 
unchastised.  The  Furies  they  said  are  attendants 
on  Justice,  and  if  the  sun  in  heaven  should  trans 
gress  his  path  they  would  punish  him.  The  poets 
related  that  stone  walls  and  iron  swords  and  leathern 
thongs  had  an  occult  sympathy  with  the  wrongs 
of  their  owners  ;  that  the  belt  which  Ajax  gave  Hec 
tor  dragged  the  Trojan  hero  over  the  field  at  the 
wheels  of  the  car  of  Achilles,  and  the  sword  which 
Hector  gave  Ajax  was  that  on  whose  point  Ajax 
fell.  They  recorded  that  when  the  Thasians  erected 
a  statue  to  Theogenes,  a  victor  in  the  games,  one  of 


COMPENSA  T1ON.  8 1 

his  rivals  went  to  it  by  night  and  endeavored  to 
throw  it  down  by  repeated  blows,  until  at  last  he 
moved  it  from  its  pedestal  and  was  crushed  to  death 
beneath  its  fall. 

This  voice  of  fable  has  in  it  somewhat  divine.  It 
came  from  thought  above  the  will  of  the  writer. 
That  is  the  best  part  of  each  writer  which  has  noth 
ing  private  in  it ;  that  is  the  best  part  of  each  which 
he  does  not  know  ;  that  which  flowed  out  of  his  con 
stitution  and  not  from  his  too  active  invention ;  that 
which  in  the  study  of  a  single  artist  you  might  not 
easily  find,  but  in  the  study  of  many  you  would  ab 
stract  as  the  spirit  of  them  all.  Phidias  it  is  not, 
but  the  work  of  man  in  that  early  Hellenic  world 
that  I  would  know.  The  name  and  circumstance 
of  Phidias,  however  convenient  for  history,  embar 
rasses  when  we  come  to  the  highest  criticism.  We 
are  to  see  that  which  man  was  tending  to  do  in  a 
given  period,  and  was  hindered,  or,  if  you  will,  mod 
ified  in  doing,  by  the  interfering  volitions  of  Phidias, 
of  Dante,  of  Shakspeare,  the  organ  whereby  man  at 
the  moment  wrought. 

Still  more  striking  is  the  expression  of  this  fact  in 
the  proverbs  of  all  nations,  which  are  always  the 
literature  of  Reason,  or  the  statements  of  an  abso 
lute  truth  without  qualification.  Proverbs,  like  the 
sacred  books  of  each  nation,  are  the  sanctuary  of 
the  Intuitions.  That  which  the  droning  world, 
chained  to  appearances,  will  not  allow  the  realist  to 
say  in  his  own  words,  it  will  suffer  him  to  say  in 
proverbs  without  contradiction.  And  this  law  of 
laws,  which  the  pulpit,  the  senate  and  the  college 


82  COMPENSATION. 

deny,  is  hourly  preached  in  all  markets  and  all  lan 
guages  by  flights  of  proverbs,  whose  teaching  is 
as  true  and  as  omnipresent  as  that  of  birds  and 
flies. 

All  things  are  double,  one  against  another.  —  Tit 
for  tat ;  an  eye  for  an  eye ;  a  tooth  for  a  tooth ; 
blood  for  blood ;  measure  for  measure ;  love  for 
love.  —  Give,  and  it  shall  be  given  you.  —  He  that 
watereth  shall  be  watered  himself.  —  What  will  you 
have  ?  quoth  God ;  pay  for  it  and  take  it.  —  Noth 
ing  venture,  nothing  have. — Thou  shalt  be  paid 
exactly  for  what  thou  hast  done,  no  more,  no  less.  — 
Who  doth  not  work  shall  not  eat.  —  Harm  watch, 
harm  catch. — Curses  always  recoil  on  the  head  of 
him  who  imprecates  them.  —  If  you  put  a  chain 
around  the  neck  of  a  slave,  the  other  end  fastens 
itself  around  your  own.  —  Bad  counsel  confounds  the 
adviser.  —  The  devil  is  an  ass. 

It  is  thus  written,  because  it  is  thus  in  life.  Our 
action  is  overmastered  and  characterized  above  our 
will  by  the  law  of  nature.  We  aim  at  a  petty  end 
quite  aside  from  the  public  good,  but  our  act  arranges 
itself  by  irresistible  magnetism  in  a  line  with  the 
poles  of  the  world. 

A  man  cannot  speak  but  he  judges  himself. 
With  his  will  or  against  his  will  he  draws  his  por 
trait  to  the  eye  of  his  companions  by  every  word. 
Every  opinion  reacts  on  him  who  utters  it.  It  is  a 
thread-ball  thrown  at  a  mark,  but  the  other  end 
remains  in  the  thrower's  bag.  Or,  rather,  it  is  a  har 
poon  thrown  at  the  whale,  unwinding,  as  it  flies,  a 
coil  of  cord  in  the  boat,  and,  if  the  harpoon  is  not 


COMPENSATION.  83 

good,  or  not  well  thrown,  it  will  go  nigh  to  cut  the 
steersman  in  twain  or  to  sink  the  boat. 

You  cannot  do  wrong  without  suffering  wrong. 
"No  man  had  ever  a  point  of  pride  that  was  not 
injurious  to  him,"  said  Burke.  The  exclusive  in 
fashionable  life  does  not  see  that  he  excludes  him 
self  from  enjoyment,  in  the  attempt  to  appropriate 
it.  The  exclusionist  in  religion  does  not  see  that 
he  shuts  the  door  of  heaven  on  himself,  in  striving 
to  shut  out  others.  Treat  men  as  pawns  and  nine 
pins  and  you  shall  suffer  as  well  as  they.  If  you 
leave  out  their  heart,  you  shall  lose  your  own.  The 
senses  would  make  things  of  all  persons  ;  of  women, 
of  children,  of  the  poor.  The  vulgar  proverb,  "  I 
will  get  it  from  his  purse  or  get  it  from  his  skin,"  is 
sound  philosophy. 

All  infractions  of  love  and  equity  in  our  social 
relations  are  speedily  punished.  They  are  punished 
by  Fear.  Whilst  I  stand  in  simple  relations  to  my 
fellow-man,  I  have  no  displeasure  in  meeting  him. 
We  meet  as  water  meets  water,  or  as  two  currents 
of  air  mix,  with  perfect  diffusion  and  interpenetra- 
tion  of  nature.  But  as  soon  as  there  is  any  depar 
ture  from  simplicity  and  attempt  at  halfness,  or 
good  for  me  that  is  not  good  for  him,  my  neigh 
bor  feels  the  wrong ;  he  shrinks  from  me  as  far  as 
I  have  shrunk  from  him ;  his  eyes  no  longer  seek 
mine ;  there  is  war  between  us ;  there  is  hate  in 
him  and  fear  in  me. 

All  the  old  abuses  in  society,  the  great  and  univer 
sal  and  the  petty  and  particular,  all  unjust  accumula 
tions  of  property  and  power,  are  avenged  in  the  same 


84  COMPENSA  TION. 

manner.  Fear  is  an  instructor  of  great  sagacity  and 
the  herald  of  all  revolutions.  One  thing  he  always 
teaches,  that  there  is  rottenness  where  he  appears. 
He  is  a  carrion  crow,  and  though  you  see  not  well 
what  he  hovers  for,  there  is  death  somewhere.  Our 
property  is  timid,  our  laws  are  timid,  our  cultivated 
classes  are  timid.  Fear  for  ages  has  boded  and 
mowed  and  gibbered  over  government  and  property. 
That  obscene  bird  is  not  there  for  nothing.  He 
indicates  great  wrongs  which  must  be  revised. 

Of  the  like  nature  is  that  expectation  of  change 
which  instantly  follows  the  suspension  of  our  volun 
tary  activity.  The  terror  of  cloudless  noon,  the 
emerald  of  Poly  crates,  the  awe  of  prosperity,  the 
instinct  which  leads  every  generous  soul  to  impose 
on  itself  tasks  of  a  noble  asceticism  and  vicarious 
virtue,  are  the  tremblings  of  the  balance  of  justice 
through  the  heart  and  mind  of  man. 

Experienced  men  of  the  world  know  very  well  that 
it  is  best  to  pay  scot  and  lot  as  they  go  along,  and 
that  a  man  often  pays  dear  for  a  small  frugality.  The 
borrower  runs  in  his  own  debt.  Has  a  man  gained 
any  thing  who  has  received  a  hundred  favors  and 
rendered  none  ?  Has  he  gained  by  borrowing, 
through  indolence  or  cunning,  his  neighbor's  wares, 
or  horses,  or  money?  There  arises  on  the  deed  the 
instant  acknowledgment  of  benefit  on  the  one  part 
and  of  debt  on  the  other ;  that  is,  of  superiority  and 
inferiority.  The  transaction  remains  in  the  memory 
of  himself  and  his  neighbor ;  and  every  new  trans 
action  alters  according  to  its  nature  their  relation  to 
each  other.  He  may  soon  come  to  see  that  he  had 


COM  PENS  A  TION.  85 

better  have  broken  his  own  bones  than  to  have  ridden 
in  his  neighbor's  coach,  and  that  "  the  highest  price 
he  can  pay  for  a  thing  is  to  ask  for  it." 

A  wise  man  will  extend  this  lesson  to  all  parts  of 
life,  and  know  that  it  is  always  the  part  of  prudence 
to  face  every  claimant  and  pay  every  just  demand  on 
your  time,  your  talents,  or  your  heart.  Always  pay; 
for  first  or  last  you  must  pay  your  entire  debt.  Per 
sons  and  events  may  stand  for  a  time  between  you 
and  justice,  but  it  is  only  a  postponement.  You 
must  pay  at  last  your  own  debt.  If  you  are  wise  you 
will  dread  a  prosperity  which  only  loads  you  with 
more.  Benefit  is  the  end  of  nature.  But  for  every 
benefit  which  you  receive,  a  tax  is  levied.  He  is 
great  who  confers  the  most  benefits.  He  is  base,  — 
and  that  is  the  one  base  thing  in  the  universe,  —  to 
receive  favors  and  render  none.  In  the  order  of 
nature  we  cannot  render  benefits  to  those  from  whom 
we  receive  them,  or  only  seldom.  But  the  benefit  we 
receive  must  be  rendered  again,  line  for  line,  deed 
for  deed,  cent  for  cent,  to  somebody.  Beware  of  too 
much  good  staying  in  your  hand.  It  will  fast  corrupt 
and  worm  worms.  Pay  it  away  quickly  in  some  sort. 

Labor  is  watched  over  by  the  same  pitiless  laws. 
Cheapest,  says  the  prudent,  is  the  dearest  labor. 
What  we  buy  in  a  broom,  a  mat,  a  wagon,  a  knife, 
is  some  application  of  good  sense  to  a  common  want. 
It  is  best  to  pay  in  your  land  a  skilful  gardener,  or  to 
buy  good  sense  applied  to  gardening ;  in  your  sailor, 
good  sense  applied  to  navigation ;  in  the  house,  good 
sense  applied  to  cooking,  sewing,  serving;  in  your 
agent,  good  sense  applied  to  accounts  and  affairs. 


86  COMPENSATION. 

So  do  you  multiply  your  presence,  or  spread  yourself 
throughout  your  estate.  But  because  of  the  dual 
constitution  of  things,  in  labor  as  in  life  there  can  be 
no  cheating.  The  thief  steals  from  himself.  The 
swindler  swindles  himself.  For  the  real  price  of 
labor  is  knowledge  and  virtue,  whereof  wealth  and 
credit  are  signs.  These  signs,  like  paper  money, 
may  be  counterfeited  or  stolen,  but  that  which  they 
represent,  namely,  knowledge  and  virtue,  cannot  be 
counterfeited  or  stolen.  These  ends  of  labor  cannot 
be  answered  but  by  real  exertions  of  the  mind,  and 
in  obedience  to  pure  motives.  The  cheat,  the  de 
faulter,  the  gambler,  cannot  extort  the  benefit,  cannot 
extort  the  knowledge  of  material  and  moral  nature 
which  his  honest  care  and  pains  yield  to  the  opera 
tive.  The  law  of  nature  is,  Do  the  thing,  and  you 
shall  have  the  power ;  but  they  who  do  not  the  thing 
have  not  the  power. 

Human  labor,  through  all  its  forms,  from  the  sharp 
ening  of  a  stake  to  the  construction  of  a  city  or  an 
epic,  is  one  immense  illustration  of  the  perfect  com 
pensation  of  the  universe.  Everywhere  and  always 
this  law  is  sublime.  The  absolute  balance  of  Give 
and  Take,  the  doctrine  that  every  thing  has  its  price, 
and  if  that  price  is  not  paid,  not  that  thing  but  some 
thing  else  is  obtained,  and  that  it  is  impossible  to  get 
anything  without  its  price,  is  not  less  sublime  in  the 
columns  of  a  ledger  than  in  the  budgets  of  states,  in 
the  laws  of  light  and  darkness,  in  all  the  action  and 
reaction  of  nature.  I  cannot  doubt  that  the  high  laws 
which  each  man  sees  ever  implicated  in  those  pro 
cesses  with  which  he  is  conversant,  the  stern  ethics 


COMPENSA  TION.  8  7 

which  sparkle  on  his  chisel-edge,  which  are  measured 
out  by  his  plumb  and  foot-rule,  which  stand  as  mani 
fest  in  the  footing  of  the  shop-bill  as  in  the  history  of 
a  state,  —  do  recommend  to  him  his  trade,  and  though 
seldom  named,  exalt  his  business  to  his  imagination. 

The  league  between  virtue  and  nature  engages  all 
things  to  assume  a  hostile  front  to  vice.  The  beau 
tiful  laws  and  substances  of  the  world  persecute  and 
whip  the  traitor.  He  finds  that  things  are  arranged 
for  truth  and  benefit,  but  there  is  no  den  in  the  wide 
world  to  hide  a  rogue.  Commit  a  crime,  and  the 
earth  is  made  of  glass.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
concealment.  Commit  a  crime,  and  it  seems  as  if  a 
coat  of  snow  fell  on  the  ground,  such  as  reveals  in 
the  woods  the  track  of  every  partridge  and  fox  and 
squirrel  and  mole.  You  cannot  recall  the  spoken 
word,  you  cannot  wipe  out  the  foot-track,  you  cannot 
draw  up  the  ladder,  so  as  to  leave  no  inlet  or  clew. 
Always  some  damning  circumstance  transpires.  The 
laws  and  substances  of  nature,  water,  snow,  wind, 
gravitation,  become  penalties  to  the  thief. 

On  the  other  hand  the  law  holds  with  equal  sure- 
ness  for  all  right  action.  Love,  and  you  shall  be 
loved.  All  love  is  mathematically  just,  as  much  as 
the  two  sides  of  an  algebraic  equation.  The  good 
man  has  absolute  good,  which  like  fire  turns  every 
thing  to  its  own  nature,  so  that  you  cannot  do  him 
any  harm ;  but  as  the  royal  armies  sent  against 
Napoleon,  when  he  approached  cast  down  their  colors 
and  from  enemies  became  friends,  so  do  disasters 
of  all  kinds,  as  sickness,  offence,  poverty,  prove 
benefactors. 


88  COMPENSATION. 

Winds  blow  and  waters  roll 
Strength  to  the  brave  and  power  and  deity, 
Yet  in  themselves  are  nothing. 

The  good  are  befriended  even  by  weakness  and 
defect.  As  no  man  had  ever  a  point  of  pride  that 
was  not  injurious  to  him,  so  no  man  had  ever  a 
defect  that  was  not  somewhere  made  useful  to  him. 
The  stag  in  the  fable  admired  his  horns^and  blamed 
his  feet,  but  when  the  hunter  came,  his  feet  saved 
him,  and  afterwards,  caught  in  the  thicket,  his  horns 
destroyed  him.  Every  man  in  his  lifetime  needs  to 
thank  his  faults.  As  no  man  thoroughly  under 
stands  a  truth  until  first  he  has  contended  against  it, 
so  no  man  has  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the 
hindrances  or  talents  of  men  until  he  has  suffered 
from  the  one  and  seen  the  triumph  of  the  other  over 
his  own  want  of  the  same.  Has  he  a  defect  of  tem 
per  that  unfits  him  to  live  in  society?  Thereby  he  is 
driven  to  entertain  himself  alone  and  acquire  habits 
of  self-help ;  and  thus,  like  the  wounded  oyster,  he 
mends  his  shell  with  pearl. 

Our  strength  grows  out  of  our  weakness.  Not 
until  we  are  pricked  and  stung  and  sorely  shot  at, 
awakens  the  indignation  which  arms  itself  with  secret 
forces.  A  great  man  is  always  willing  to  be  little. 
Whilst  he  sits  on  the  cushion  of  advantages,  he  goes 
to  sleep.  When  he  is  pushed,  tormented,  defeated, 
he  has  a  chance  to  learn  something ;  he  has  been  put 
on  his  wits,  on  his  manhood  ;  he  has  gained  facts  ; 
learns  his  ignorance ;  is  cured  of  the  insanity  of 
conceit ;  has  got  moderation  and  real  skill.  The 
wise  man  always  throws  himself  on  the  side  of  his 


COMPENSATION.  89 

assailants.  It  is  more  his  interest  than  it  is  theirs  to 
find  his  weak  point.  The  wound  cicatrizes  and  falls 
off  from  him  like  a  dead  skin  and  when  they  would 
triumph,  lo  !  he  has  passed  on  invulnerable.  Blame 
is  safer  than  praise.  I  hate  to  be  defended  in  a 
newspaper.  As  long  as  all  that  is  said  is  said  against 
me,  I  feel  a  certain  assurance  of  success.  But  as 
soon  as  honied  words  of  praise  are  spoken  for  me  I 
feel  as  one  that  lies  unprotected  before  his  enemies. 
In  general,  every  evil  to  which  we  do  not  succumb 
is  a  benefactor.  As  the  Sandwich  Islander  believes 
that  the  strength  and  valor  of  the  enemy  he  kills 
passes  into  himself,  so  we  gain  the  strength  of  the 
temptation  we  resist. 

The  same  guards  which  protect  us  from  disaster, 
defect  and  enmity,  defend  us,  if  we  will,  from  self 
ishness  and  fraud.  Bolts  and  bars  are  not  the  best 
of  our  institutions,  nor  is  shrewdness  in  trade  a  mark 
of  wisdom.  Men  suffer  all  their  life  long  under  the 
foolish  superstition  that  they  can  be  cheated.  But 
it  is  as  impossible  for  a  man  to  be  cheated  by  any 
one  but  himself,  as  for  a  thing  to  be  and  not  to  be 
at  the  same  time.  There  is  a  third  silent  party  to  all 
our  bargains.  The  nature  and  soul  of  things  takes 
on  itself  the  guaranty  of  the  fulfilment  of  every  con 
tract,  so  that  honest  service  cannot  come  to  loss. 
If  you  serve  an  ungrateful  master,  serve  him  the 
more.  Put  God  in  your  debt.  Every  stroke  shall 
be  repaid.  The  longer  the  payment  is  withholden, 
the  better  for  you;  for  compound  interest  on  com 
pound  interest  is  the  rate  and  usage  of  this  exchequer. 

The  history  of  persecution  is  a  history  of  endeavors 


90  COMPENSATION. 

to  cheat  nature,  to  make  water  run  up  hill,  to  twist 
a  rope  of  sand.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  the 
actors  be  many  or  one,  a  tyrant  or  a  mob.  A  mob 
is  a  society  of  bodies  voluntarily  bereaving  them 
selves  of  reason  and  traversing  its  work.  The  mob 
is  man  voluntarily  descending  to  the  nature  of  the 
beast.  Its  fit  hour  of  activity  is  night.  Its  actions 
are  insane,  like  its  whole  constitution.  It  persecutes 
a  principle  ;  it  would  whip  a  right ;  it  would  tar  and 
feather  justice,  by  inflicting  fire  and  outrage  upon 
the  houses  and  persons  of  those  who  have  these. 
It  resembles  the  prank  of  boys,  who  run  with  fire- 
engines  to  put  out  the  ruddy  aurora  streaming  to  the 
stars.  The  inviolate  spirit  turns  their  spite  against 
the  wrongdoers.  The  martyr  cannot  be  dishonored. 
Every  lash  inflicted  is  a  tongue  of  fame  ;  every  prison 
a  more  illustrious  abode  ;  every  burned  book  or  house 
enlightens  the  world  ;  every  suppressed  or  expunged 
word  reverberates  through  the  earth  from  side  to 
side.  The  minds  of  men  are  at  last  aroused  ;  reason 
looks  out  and  justifies  her  own  and  malice  finds  all 
her  work  in  vain.  It  is  the  whipper  who  is  whipped 
and  the  tyrant  who  is  undone. 

Thus  do  all  things  preach  the  indifferency  of  cir 
cumstances.  The  man  is  all.  Every  thing  has  two 
sides,  a  good  and  an  evil.  Every  advantage  has  its 
tax.  I  learn  to  be  content.  But  the  doctrine  of 
compensation  is  not  the  doctrine  of  indifferency. 
The  thoughtless  say,  on  hearing  these  representa 
tions, —  What  boots  it  to  do  well?  there  is  one 
event  to  good  and  evil ;  if  I  gain  any  good  I  must 


COMPENSA  TION.  9 1 

pay  for  it ;  if  I  lose  any  good  I  gain  some  other ; 
all  actions  are  indifferent. 

There  is  a  deeper  fact  in  the  soul  than  compensa 
tion,  to  wit,  its  own  nature.  The  soul  is  not  a  com 
pensation,  but  a  life.  The  soul  is.  Under  all  this 
running  sea  of  circumstance,  whose  waters  ebb  and 
flow  with  perfect  balance,  lies  the  aboriginal  abyss 
of  real  Being.  Existence,  or  God,  is  not  a  relation 
or  a  part,  but  the  whole.  Being  is  the  vast  affirma 
tive,  excluding  negation,  self-balanced,  and  swallow 
ing  up  all  relations,  parts  and  times  within  itself. 
Nature,  truth,  virtue,  are  the  influx  from  thence. 
Vice  is  the  absence  or  departure  of  the  same.  Noth 
ing,  Falsehood,  may  indeed  stand  as  the  great  Night 
or  shade  on  which  as  a  back-ground  the  living  uni 
verse  paints  itself  forth ;  but  no  fact  is  begotten  by 
it ;  it  cannot  work,  for  it  is  not.  It  cannot  work  any 
good ;  it  cannot  work  any  harm.  It  is  harm  inas 
much  as  it  is  worse  not  to  be  than  to  be. 

We  feel  defrauded  of  the  retribution  due  to  evil 
acts,  because  the  criminal  adheres  to  his  vice  and 
contumacy  and  does  not  come  to  a  crisis  or  judgment 
anywhere  in  visible  nature.  There  is  no  stunning 
confutation  of  his  nonsense  before  men  and  angels. 
Has  he  therefore  outwitted  the  law?  Inasmuch  as 
he  carries  the  malignity  and  the  lie  with  him  he  so 
far  decreases  from  nature.  In  some  manner  there 
will  be  a  demonstration  of  the  wrong  to  the  under 
standing  also ;  but,  should  we  not  see  it,  this  deadly 
deduction  makes  square  the  eternal  account. 

Neither  can  it  be  said,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
the  gain  of  rectitude  must  be  bought  by  any  loss. 


9  2  COMPENSA  TION. 

There  is  no  penalty  to  virtue ;  no  penalty  to  wisdom  ; 
they  are  proper  additions  of  being.  In  a  virtuous 
action  I  properly  am ;  in  a  virtuous  act  I  add  to  the 
world ;  I  plant  into  deserts  conquered  from  Chaos 
and  Nothing  and  see  the  darkness  receding  on  the 
limits  of  the  horizon.  There  can  be  no  excess  to 
love,  none  to  knowledge,  none  to  beauty,  when  these 
attributes  are  considered  in  the  purest  sense.  The 
soul  refuses  all  limits.  It  affirms  in  man  always  an 
Optimism,  never  a  Pessimism. 

His  life  is  a  progress,  and  not  a  station.  His 
instinct  is  trust.  Our  instinct  uses  "more"  and 
'*  less"  in  application  to  man,  always  of  the  presence 
of  the  soul,  and  not  of  its  absence ;  the  brave  man 
is  greater  than  the  coward ;  the  true,  the  benevolent, 
the  wise,  is  more  a  man  and  not  less,  than  the  fool 
and  knave.  There  is  therefore  no  tax  on  the  good 
of  virtue,  for  that  is  the  incoming  of  God  himself, 
or  absolute  existence,  without  any  comparative.  All 
external  good  has  its  tax,  and  if  it  came  without 
desert  or  sweat,  has  no  root  in  me,  and  the  next 
wind  will  blow  it  away.  But  all  the  good  of  nature 
is  the  soul's,  and  may  be  had  if  paid  for  in  nature's 
lawful  coin,  that  is,  by  labor  which  the  heart  and  the 
head  allow.  I  no  longer  wish  to  meet  a  good  I  do 
not  earn,  for  example  to  find  a  pot  of  buried  gold, 
knowing  that  it  brings  with  it  new  responsibility. 
I  do  not  wish  more  external  goods,  — neither  posses 
sions,  nor  honors,  nor  powers,  nor  persons.  The 
gain  is  apparent ;  the  tax  is  certain.  But  there  is  no 
tax  on  the  knowledge  that  the  compensation  exists 
and  that  it  is  not  desirable  to  dig  up  treasure.  Herein 


COMPENSA  TION.  9  3 

I  rejoice  with  a  serene  eternal  peace.  I  contract  the 
boundaries  of  possible  mischief.  I  learn  the  wisdom 
of  St.  Bernard,  "  Nothing  can  work  me  damage 
except  myself;  the  harm  that  I  sustain  I  carry  about 
with  me,  and  never  am  a  real  sufferer  but  by  my 
own  fault." 

In  the  nature  of  the  soul  is  the  compensation  for 
the  inequalities  of  condition.  The  radical  tragedy 
of  nature  seems  to  be  the  distinction  of  More  and 
Less.  How  can  Less  not  feel  the  pain ;  how  not 
feel  indignation  or  malevolence  towards  More? 
Look  at  those  who  have  less  faculty,  and  one  feels 
sad  and  knows  not  well  what  to  make  of  it.  Almost 
he  shuns  their  eye ;  he  fears  they  will  upbraid  God. 
What  should  they  do?  It  seems  a  great  injustice. 
But  see  the  facts  nearly  and  these  mountainous  ine 
qualities  vanish.  Love  reduces  them  as  the  sun 
melts  the  iceberg  in  the  sea.  The  heart  and  soul 
of  all  men  being  one,  this  bitterness  of  His  and  Mine 
ceases.  His  is  mine.  I  am  my  brother  and  my 
brother  is  me.  If  I  feel  overshadowed  and  outdone 
by  great  neighbors,  I  can  get  love  ;  I  can  still  receive  ; 
and  he  that,  loveth  maketh  his  own  the  grandeur  he 
loves.  Thereby  I  make  the  discovery  that  my 
brother  is  my  guardian,  acting  for  me  with  the 
friendliest  designs,  and  the  estate  I  so  admired  and 
envied  is  my  own.  It  is  the  eternal  nature  of  the 
soul  to  appropriate  and  make  all  things  its  own. 
Jesus  and  Shakspeare  are  fragments  of  the  soul,  and 
by  love  I  conquer  and  incorporate  them  in  my  own 
conscious  domain.  His  virtue, — is  not  that  mine? 
His  wit,  —  if  it  cannot  be  made  mine,  it  is  not  wit. 


94  COMPENSA  TION. 

Such  also  is  the  natural  history  of  calamity.  The 
changes  which  break  up  at  short  intervals  the  pros 
perity  of  men  are  advertisements  of  a  nature  whose 
law  is  growth.  Evermore  it  is  the  order  of  nature  to 
grow,  and  every  soul  is  by  this  intrinsic  necessity 
quitting  its  whole  system  of  things,  its  friends  and 
home  and  laws  and  faith,  as  the  shellfish  crawls  out 
of  its  beautiful  but  stony  case,  because  it  no  longer 
admits  of  its  growth,  and  slowly  forms  a  new  house. 
In  proportion  to  the  vigor  of  the  individual  these 
revolutions  are  frequent,  until  in  some  happier  mind 
they  are  incessant  and  all  worldly  relations  hang  very 
loosely  about  him,  becoming  as  it  were  a  transparent 
fluid  membrane  through  which  the  living  form  is 
always  seen,  and  not,  as  in  most  men,  an  indurated 
heterogeneous  fabric  of  many  dates  and  of  no  settled 
character,  in  which  the  man  is  imprisoned.  Then  there 
can  be  enlargement,  and  the  man  of  to-day  scarcely 
recognizes  the  man  of  yesterday.  And  such  should 
be  the  -outward  biography  of  man  in  time,  a  putting 
off  of  dead  circumstances  day  by  day,  as  he  renews 
his  raiment  day  by  day.  But  to  us,  in  our  lapsed 
estate,  resting,  not  advancing,  resisting,  not  cooper 
ating  with  the  divine  expansion,  this  growth  comes 
by  shocks. 

We  cannot  part  with  our  friends.  We  cannot  let 
our  angels  go.  We  do  not  see  that  they  only  go  out 
that  archangels  may  come  in.  We  are  idolators  of 
the  old.  We  do  not  believe  in  the  riches  of  the 
soul,  in  its  proper  eternity  and  omnipresence.  We 
do  not  believe  there  is  any  force  in  to-day  to  rival  or 
re-create  that  beautiful  yesterday.  We  linger  in  the 


COMPENSA  TION.  95 

ruins  of  the  old  tent  where  once  we  had  bread  and 
shelter  and  organs,  nor  believe  that  the  spirit  can 
feed,  cover,  and  nerve  us  again.  We  cannot  again 
find  aught  so  dear,  so  sweet,  so  graceful.  But  we 
sit  and  weep  in  vain.  The  voice  of  the  Almighty 
saith,  'Up  and  onward  forevermore  ! '  We  cannot 
stay  amid  the  ruins.  Neither  will  we  rely  on  the 
New ;  and  so  we  walk  ever  with  reverted  eyes,  like 
those  monsters  who  look  backwards. 

And  yet  the  compensations  of  calamity  are  made 
apparent  to  the  understanding  also,  after  long  inter 
vals  of  time.  A  fever,  a  mutilation,  a  cruel  disap 
pointment,  a  loss  of  wealth,  a  loss  of  friends,  seems 
at  the  moment  unpaid  loss,  and  unpayable.  But 
the  sure  years  reveal  the  deep  remedial  force  that 
underlies  all  facts.  The  death  of  a  dear  friend,  wife, 
brother,  lover,  which  seemed  nothing  but  privation, 
somewhat  later  assumes  the  aspect  of  a  guide  or 
genius ;  for  it  commonly  operates  revolutions  in  our 
way  of  life,  terminates  an  epoch  of  infancy  or  of 
youth  which  was  waiting  to  be  closed,  breaks  up  a 
wonted  occupation,  or  a  household,  or  style  of  living, 
and  allows  the  formation  of  new  ones  more  friendly 
to  the  growth  of  character.  It  permits  or  constrains 
the  formation  of  new  acquaintances  and  the  recep 
tion  of  new  influences  that  prove  of  the  first  impor 
tance  to  the  next  years ;  and  the  man  or  woman  who 
would  have  remained  a  sunny  garden-flower,  with  no 
room  for  its  roots  and  too  much  sunshine  for  its  head, 
by  the  falling  of  the  walls  and  the  neglect  of  the  gar 
dener  is  made  the  banian  of  the  forest,  yielding  shade 
and  fruit  to  wide  neighborhoods  of  men. 


ESSAY    IV. 

SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 

WHEN  the  act  of  reflection  takes  place  in  the  mind, 
when  we  look  at  ourselves  in  the  light  of  thought,  we 
discover  that  our  life  is  embosomed  in  beauty.  Be 
hind  us,  as  we  go,  all  things  assume  pleasing  forms, 
as  clouds  do  far  off.  Not  only  things  familiar  and 
stale,  but  even  the  tragic  and  terrible  are  comely  as 
they  take  their  place  in  the  pictures  of  memory.  The 
river-bank,  the  weed  at  the  water-side,  the  old  house, 
the  foolish  person,  —  however  neglected  in  the  pass 
ing,  —  have  a  grace  in  the  past.  Even  the  corpse 
that  has  lain  in  the  chambers  has  added  a  solemn 
ornament  to  the  house.  The  soul  will  not  know 
either  deformity  or  pain.  If  in  the  hours  of  clear 
reason  we  should  speak  the  severest  truth,  we  should 
say  that  we  had  never  made  a  sacrifice.  In  these  hours 
the  mind  seems  so  great  that  nothing  can  be  taken 
from  us  that  seems  much.  All  loss,  all  pain,  is  par 
ticular  ;  the  universe  remains  to  the  heart  unhurt. 
Distress  never,  trifles  never  abate  our  trust.  No 
man  ever  stated  his  griefs  as  lightly  as  he  might. 
Allow  for  exaggeration  in  the  most  patient  and  sorely 
ridden  hack  that  was  ever  driven.  For  it  is  only 
96 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  97 

the  finite  that  has  wrought  and  suffered ;  the  infinite 
lies  stretched  in  smiling  repose. 

The  intellectual  life  may  be  kept  clean  and  health 
ful  if  man  will  live  the  life  of  nature  and  not  import 
into  his  mind  difficulties  which  are  none  of  his.  No 
man  need  be  perplexed  in  his  speculations.  Let  him 
do  and  say  what  strictly  belongs  to  him,  and  though 
very  ignorant  of  books,  his  nature  shall  not  yield  him 
any  intellectual  obstructions  and  doubts.  Our  young 
people  are  diseased  with  the  theological  problems  of 
original  sin,  origin  of  evil,  predestination  and  the  like. 
These  never  presented  a  practical  difficulty  to  any  man, 
—  never  darkened  across  any  man's  road  who  did  not 
go  out  of  his  way  to  seek  them.  These  are  the  soul's 
•mumps  and  measles  and  whooping-coughs,  and  those 
who  have  not  caught  them  cannot  describe  their 
health  or  prescribe  the  cure.  A  simple  mind  will 
not  know  these  enemies.  It  is  quite  another  thing 
that  he  should  be  able  to  give  account  of  his  faith 
and  expound  to  another  the  theory  of  his  self-union 
and  freedom.  This  requires  rare  gifts.  Yet  without 
this  self-knowledge  there  may  be  a  sylvan  strength 
and  integrity  in  that  which  he  is.  "A  few  strong 
instincts  and  a  few  plain  rules  "  suffice  us. 

My  will  never  gave  the  images  in  my  mind  the 
rank  they  now  take.  The  regular  course  of  studies, 
the  years  of  academical  and  professional  education 
have  not  yielded  me  better  facts  than  some  idle  books 
under  the  bench  at  the  Latin  school.  What  we  do 
not  call  education  is  more  precious  than  that  which  we 
call  so.  We  form  no  guess,  at  the  time  of  receiving 
a  thought,  of  its  comparative  value.  And  education 


98  SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 

often  wastes  its  effort  in  attempts  to  thwart  and  baulk 
this  natural  magnetism,  which  with  sure  discrimina 
tion  selects  its  own. 

In  like  manner  our  moral  nature  is  vitiated  by 
any  interference  of  our  will.  People  represent  vir 
tue  as  a  struggle,  and  take  to  themselves  great  airs 
upon  their  attainments,  and  the  question  is  every 
where  vexed  when  a  noble  nature  is  commended, 
Whether  the  man  is  not  better  who  strives  with 
temptation.  But  there  is  no  merit  in  the  matter. 
Either  God  is  there  or  he  is  not  there.  We  love 
characters  in  proportion  as  they  are  impulsive  and 
spontaneous.  The  less  a  man  thinks  or  knows 
about  his  virtues  the  better  we  like  him.  Timoleon's 
victories  are  the  best  victories,  which  ran  and 
flowed  like  Homer's  verses,  Plutarch  said.  When 
we  see  a  soul  whose  acts  are  all  regal,  graceful  and 
pleasant  as  roses,  we  must  thank  God  that  such 
things  can  be  and  are,  and  not  turn  sourly  on  the 
angel  and  say  '  Crump  is  a  better  man  with  his 
grunting  resistance  to  all  his  native  devils.' 

Not  less  conspicuous  is  the  preponderance  of  na 
ture  over  will  in  all  practical  life.  There  is  less  in 
tention  in  history  than  we  ascribe  to  it.  We  impute 
deep-laid  far-sighted  plans  to  Caesar  and  Napoleon; 
but  the  best  of  their  power  was  in  nature,  not  in 
them.  Men  of  an  extraordinary  success,  in  their 
honest  moments,  have  always  sung  *  Not  unto  us, 
not  unto  us.'  According  to  the  faith  of  their  times 
they  have  built  altars  to  Fortune,  or  to  Destiny,  or 
to  St.  Julian.  Their  success  lay  in  their  parallelism 
to  the  course  of  thought,  which  found  in  them  an 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  99 

unobstructed  channel ;  and  the  wonders  of  which 
they  were  the  visible  conductors  seemed  to  the  eye 
their  deed.  Did  the  wires  generate  the  galvanism  ? 
It  is  even  true  that  there  was  less  in  them  on  which 
they  could  reflect  than  in  another ;  as  the  virtue  of 
a  pipe  is  to  be  smooth  and  hollow.  That  which  ex 
ternally  seemed  will  and  immovableness  was  willing 
ness  and  self-annihilation.  Could  Shakspeare  give 
a  theory  of  Shakspeare?  Could  ever  a  man  of  pro 
digious  mathematical  genius  convey  to  others  any 
insight  into  his  methods?  If  he  could  communi 
cate  that  secret  instantly  it  would  lose  all  its  exagger 
ated  value,  blending  with  the  daylight  and  the  vital 
energy  the  power  to  stand  and  to  go. 

The  lesson  is  forcibly  taught  by  these  observa 
tions  that  our  life  might  be  much  easier  and  simpler 
than  we  make  it,  that  the  world  might  be  a  happier 
place  than  it  is,  that  there  is  no  need  of  struggles,  con 
vulsions,  and  despairs,  of  the  wringing  of  the  hands 
and  the  gnashing  of  the  teeth ;  that  we  miscreate 
our  own  evils.  We  interfere  with  the  optimism  of 
nature,  for  whenever  we  get  this  vantage-ground  of 
the  past,  or  of  a  wiser  mind  in  the  present,  we  are 
able  to  discern  that  we  are  begirt  with  spiritual  laws 
which  execute  themselves. 

The  face  of  external  nature  teaches  the  same  lesson 
with  calm  superiority.  Nature  will  not  have  us  fret 
and  fume.  She  does  not  like  our  benevolence  or 
our  learning  much  better  than  she  likes  our  frauds 
and  wars.  When  we  come  out  of  the  caucus,  or  the 
bank,  or  the  Abolition  Convention,  or  the  Temper 
ance  meeting,  or  the  Transcendental  club  into  the 


100  SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 

fields  and  woods,  she  says  to  us,  *  So  hot?  my  little 
sir.' 

We  are  full  of  mechanical  actions.  We  must  needs 
intermeddle  and  have  things  in  our  own  way,  until 
the  sacrifices  and  virtues  of  society  are  odious.  Love 
should  make  joy;  but  our  benevolence  is  unhappy. 
Our  Sunday  schools  and  churches  and  pauper-societies 
are  yokes  to  the  neck.  We  pain  ourselves  to  please 
nobody.  There  are  natural  ways  of  arriving  at  the 
same  ends  at  which  these  aim,  but  do  not  arrive. 
Why  should  all  virtue  work  in  one  and  the  same  way? 
Why  should  all  give  dollars?  It  is  very  inconvenient 
to  us  country  folk,  and  we  do  not  think  any  good  will 
come  of  it.  We  have  not  dollars.  Merchants  have. 
Let  them  give  them.  Farmers  will  give  corn.  Poets 
will  sing.  Women  will  sew.  Laborers  will  lend  a 
hand.  The  children  will  bring  flowers.  And  why 
drag  this  dead  weight  of  a  Sunday  school  over  the 
whole  Christendom?  It  is  natural  and  beautiful  that 
childhood  should  inquire  and  maturity  should  teach ; 
but  it  is  time  enough  to  answer  questions  when  they 
are  asked.  Do  not  shut  up  the  young  people  against 
their  will  in  a  pew  and  force  the  children  to  ask  them 
questions  for  an  hour  against  their  will. 

If  we  look  wider,  all  things  are  alike ;  laws  and 
letters  and  creeds  and  modes  of  living  seem  a  trav- 
estie  of  truth.  Our  society  is  encumbered  by  ponder 
ous  machinery,  which  resembles  the  endless  aqueducts 
which  the  Romans  built  over  hill  and  dale  and  which 
are  superseded  by  the  discovery  of  the  law  that  water 
rises  to  the  level  of  its  source.  It  is  a  Chinese  wall 
which  any  nimble  Tartar  can  leap  over.  It  is  a 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS.  IOI 

standing  army,  not  so  good  as  a  peace.  It  is  a  grad 
uated,  titled,  richly  appointed  Empire,  quite  super 
fluous  when  Town-meetings  are  found  to  answer  just 
as  well. 

Let  us  draw  a  lesson  from  nature,  which  always 
works  by  short  ways.  When  the  fruit  is  ripe,  it  falls. 
When  the  fruit  is  despatched,  the  leaf  falls.  The 
circuit  of  the  waters  is  mere  falling.  The  walking 
of  man  and  all  animals  is  a  falling  forward.  All  our 
manual  labor  and  works  of  strength,  as  prying,  split 
ting,  digging,  rowing  and  so  forth,  are  done  by  dint 
of  continual  falling,  and  the  globe,  earth,  moon, 
comet,  sun,  star,  fall  forever  and  ever. 

The  simplicity  of  the  universe  is  very  different  from 
the  simplicity  of  a  machine.  He  who  sees  moral 
nature  out  and  out  and  thoroughly  knows  how  knowl 
edge  is  acquired  and  character  formed,  is  a  pedant. 
The  simplicity  of  nature  is  not  that  which  may  easily 
be  read,  but  is  inexhaustible.  The  last  analysis 
can  no  wise  be  made.  We  judge  of  a  man's  wis 
dom  by  his  hope,  knowing  that  the  perception  of  the 
inexhaustibleness  of  nature  is  an  immortal  youth. 
The  wild  fertility  of  nature  is  felt  in  comparing  our 
rigid  names  and  reputations  with  our  fluid  conscious 
ness.  We  pass  in  the  world  for  sects  and  schools, 
for  erudition  and  piety,  and  we  are  all  the  time  jejune 
babes.  One  sees  very  well  how  Pyrrhonism  grew  up. 
Every  man  sees  that  he  is  that  middle  point  whereof 
every  thing  may  be  affirmed  and  denied  with  equal 
reason.  He  is  old,  he  is  young,  he  is  very  wise,  he 
is  altogether  ignorant.  He  hears  and  feels  what  you 
say  of  the  seraphim,  and  of  the  tin-pedlar.  There  is 


102  SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 

no  permanent  wise  man  except  in  the  figment  of  the 
stoics.  We  side  with  the  hero,  as  we  read  or  paint, 
against  the  coward  and  the  robber ;  but  we  have  been 
ourselves  that  coward  and  robber,  and  shall  be  again, 
not  in  the  low  circumstance,  but  in  comparison  with 
the  grandeurs  possible  to  the  soul. 

A  little  consideration  of  what  takes  place  around 
us  every  day  would  show  us  that  a  higher  law  than 
that  of  our  will  regulates  events ;  that  our  painful 
labors  are  very  unnecessary  and  altogether  fruitless ; 
that  only  in  our  easy,  simple,  spontaneous  action  are 
we  strong,  and  by  contenting  ourselves  with  obedi 
ence  we  become  divine.  Belief  and  love,  — a  believ 
ing  we  love  will  relieve  us  of  a  vast  load  of  care.  O 
my  brothers,  God  exists.  There  is  a  soul  at  the 
centre  of  nature  and  over  the  will  of  every  man,  so 
that  none  of  us  can  wrong  the  universe.  It  has  so 
infused  its  strong  enchantment  into  nature  that  we 
prosper  when  we  accept  its  advice,  and  when  we 
struggle  to  wound  its  creatures  our  hands  are  glued 
to  our  sides,  or  they  beat  our  own  breasts.  The 
whole  course  of  things  goes  to  teach  us  faith.  •  We 
need  only  obey.  There  is  a  guidance  for  each  of  us, 
and  by  lowly  listening  we  shall  hear  the  right  word. 
Why  need  you  choose  so  painfully  your  place  and 
occupation  and  associates  and  modes  of  action  and 
entertainment?  Certainly  there  is  a  possible  right 
for  you  that  precludes  the  need  of  balance  and  wilful 
election.  For  you  there  is  a  reality,  a  fit  place  and 
congenial  duties.  Place  yourself  in  the  middle  of  the 
stream  of  power  and  wisdom  which  flows  into  you  as 
life,  place  yourself  in  the  full  centre  of  that  flood,  then 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  103 

you  are  without  effort  impelled  to  truth,  to  right  and 
a  perfect  contentment.  Then  you  put  all  gainsayers 
in  the  wrong.  Then  you  are  the  world,  the  measure 
of  right,  of  truth,  of  beauty.  If  we  will  not  be  mar 
plots  with  our  miserable  interferences,  the  work,  the 
society,  letters,  arts,  science,  religion  of  men  would 
go  on  far  better  than  now,  and  the  Heaven  predicted 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  and  still  predicted 
from  the  bottom  of  the  heart,  would  organize  itself, 
as  do  now  the  rose  and  the  air  and  the  sun. 

I  say,  do  not  choose ;  but  that  is  a  figure  of  speech 
by  which  I  would  distinguish  what  is  commonly 
called  choice  among  men,  and  which  is  a  partial  act, 
the  choice  of  the  hands,  of  the  eyes,  of  the  appetites, 
and  not  a  whole  act  of  the  man.  But  that  which  I 
call  right  or  goodness,  is  the  choice  of  my  constitu 
tion  ;  and  that  which  I  call  heaven,  and  inwardly 
aspire  after,  is  the  state  of  circumstances  desirable  to 
my  constitution  ;  and  the  action  which  I  in  all  my  years 
tend  to  do,  is  the  work  for  my  faculties.  We  must 
hold  a  man  amenable  to  reason  for  the  choice  of  his 
daily  craft  or  profession.  It  is  not  an  excuse  any 
longer  for  his  deeds  that  they  are  the  custom  of  his 
trade.  What  business  has  he  with  an  evil  trade? 
Has  he  not  a  calling 'in  his  character? 

Each  man  has  his  own  vocation.  The  talent  is 
the  call.  There  is  one  direction  in  which  all  space 
is  open  to  him.  He  has  faculties  silently  inviting 
him  thither  to  endless  exertion.  He  is  like  a  ship 
in  a  river ;  he  runs  against  obstructions  on  every 
side  but  one;  on  that  side  all  obstruction  is  taken 
away  and  he  sweeps  serenely  over  God's  depths  into 


104  SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 

an  infinite  sea.  This  talent  and  this  call  depend  on 
his  organization,  or  the  mode  in  which  the  general 
soul  incarnates  itself  in  him.  He  inclines  to  do 
something  which  is  easy  to  him  and  good  when  it  is 
done,  but  which  no  other  man  can  do.  He  has  no 
rival.  For  the  more  truly  he  consults  his  own  powers, 
the  more  difference  will  his  work  exhibit  from  the 
work  of  any  other.  When  he  is  true  and  faithful  his 
ambition  is  exactly  proportioned  to  his  powers.  The 
height  of  the  pinnacle  is  determined  by  the  breadth 
of  the  base.  Every  man  has  this  call  of  the  power  to 
do  somewhat  unique,  and  no  man  has  any  other  call. 
The  pretence  that  he  has  another  call,  a  summons 
by  name  and  personal  election  and  outward  "signs 
that  mark  him  extraordinary  and  not  in  the  roll  of 
common  men,"  is  fanaticism,  and  betrays  obtuseness 
to  perceive  that  there  is  one  mind  in  all  the  individ 
uals,  and  no  respect  of  persons  therein. 

By  doing  his  work  he  makes  the  need  felt  which 
he  can  supply.  He  creates  the  taste  by  which  he  is 
enjoyed.  He  provokes  the  wants  to  which  he  can 
minister.  By  doing  his  own  work  he  unfolds  him 
self.  It  is  the  vice  of  our  public  speaking  that  it 
has  not  abandonment.  Somewhere,  not  only  every 
orator  but  every  man  should  let  out  all  the  length 
of  all  the  reins ;  should  find  or  make  a  frank  and 
hearty  expression  of  what  force  and  meaning  is  in 
him.  The  common  experience  is  that  the  man  fits 
himself  as  well  as  he  can  to  the  customary  details 
of  that  work  or  trade  he  falls  into,  and  tends  it  as 
a  dog  turns  a  spit.  Then  he  is  a  part  of  the  machine 
he  moves  ;  the  man  is  lost.  Until  he  can  manage  to 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS.  105 

communicate  himself  to  others  in  his  full  stature  and 
proportion  as  a  wise  and  good  man,  he  does  not  yet 
find  his  vocation.  He  must  find  in  that  an  outlet 
for  his  character,  so  that  he  may  justify  himself  to 
their  eyes  for  doing  what  he  does.  If  the  labor  is 
trivial,  let  him  by  his  thinking  and  character  make  it 
liberal.  Whatever  he  knows  and  thinks,  whatever  in 
his  apprehension  is  worth  doing,  that  let  him  commu 
nicate,  or  men  will  never  know  and  honor  him  aright. 
Foolish,  whenever  you  take  the  meanness  and  formal 
ity  of  that  thing  you  do,  instead  of  converting  it  into 
the  obedient  spiracle  of  your  character  and  aims. 

We  like  only  such  actions  as  have  already  long 
had  the  praise  of  men,  and  do  not  perceive  that  any 
thing  man  can  do  may  be 'divinely  done.  We  think 
greatness  entailed  or  organized  in  some  places  or 
duties,  in  certain  offices  or  occasions,  and  do  not  see 
that  Paganini  can  extract  rapture  from  a  catgut,  and 
Eulenstein  from  a  jews-harp,  and  a  nimble-fingered 
lad  out  of  shreds  of  paper  with  his  scissors,  and 
Landseer  out  of  swine,  and  a  hero  out  of  the  pitiful 
habitation  and  company  in  which  he  was  hidden. 
What  we  call  obscure  condition  or  vulgar  society 
is  that  condition  and  society  whose  poetry  is  not 
yet  written,  but  which  you  shall  presently  make  as 
enviable  and  renowned  as  any.  Accept  your  genius 
and  say  what  you  think.  In  our  estimates  let  us 
take  a  lesson  from  kings.  The  parts  of  hospitality, 
the  connection  of  families,  the  impressiveness  of 
death,  and  a  thousand  other  things,  royalty  makes 
its  own  estimate  of,  and  a  royal  mind  will.  To  make 
habitually  a  new  estimate,  —  that  is  elevation. 


io6  SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 

What  a  man  does,  that  he  has.  What  has  he  to 
do  with  hope  or  fear?  In  himself  is  his  might.  Let 
him  regard  no  good  as  solid  but  that  which  is  in  his 
nature  and  which  must  grow  out  of  him  as  long  as  he 
exists.  The  goods  of  fortune  may  come  and  go  like 
summer  leaves ;  let  him  play  with  them  and  scatter 
them  on  every  wind  as  the  momentary  signs  of  his 
infinite  productiveness. 

He  may  have  his  own.  A  man's  genius,  the 
quality  that  differences  him  from  every  other,  the 
susceptibility  to  one  class  of  influences,  the  selection 
of  what  is  fit  for  him,  the  rejection  of  what  is  unfit, 
determines  for  him  the  character  of  the  universe. 
As  a  man  thinketh  so  is  he,  and  as  a  man  chooseth 
so  is  he  and  so  is  nature.  A  man  is  a  method,  a 
progressive  arrangement ;  a  selecting  principle,  gath 
ering  his  like  to  him  wherever  he  goes.  He  takes 
only  his  own  out  of  the  multiplicity  that  sweeps  and 
circles  round  him.  He  is  like  one  of  those  booms 
which  are  set  out  from  the  shore  on  rivers  to  catch 
drift-wood,  or  like  the  loadstone  amongst  splinters 
of  steel.  Those  facts,  words,  persons,  which  dwell 
in  his  memory  without  his  being  able  to  say  why, 
remain  because  they  have  a  relation  to  him  not  less 
real  for  being  as  yet  unapprehended.  They  are  sym 
bols  of  value  to  him  as  they  can  interpret  parts  of  his 
consciousness  which  he  would  vainly  seek  words  for 
in  the  conventional  images  of  books  and  other  minds. 
What  attracts  my  attention  shall  have  it,  as  I  will  go 
to  the  man  who  knocks  at  my  door,  whilst  a  thousand 
persons  as  worthy  go  by  it,  to  whom  I  give  no  regard. 
It  is  enough  that  these  particulars  speak  to  me.  A 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS.  107 

few  anecdotes,  a  few  traits  of  character,  manners, 
face,  a  few  incidents,  have  an  emphasis  in  your  mem 
ory  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  apparent  significance 
if  you  measure  them  by  the  ordinary  standards.  They 
relate  to  your  gift.  Let  them  have  their  weight,  and 
do  not  reject  them  and  cast  about  for  illustration  and 
facts  more  usual  in  literature.  Respect  them,  for 
they  have  their  origin  in  deepest  nature.  What  your 
heart  thinks  great,  is  great.  The  soul's  emphasis  is 
always  right. 

Over  all  things  that  are  agreeable  to  his  nature 
and  genius  the  man  has  the  highest  right.  Every 
where  he  may  take  what  belongs  to  his  spiritual  es 
tate,  nor  can  he  take  anything  else  though  all  doors 
were  open,  nor  can  all  the  force  of  men  hinder  him 
from  taking  so  much.  It  is  vain  to  attempt  to  keep 
a  secret  from  one  who  has  a  right  to  know  it.  It 
will  tell  itself.  That  mood  into  which  a  friend  can 
bring  us  is  his  dominion  over  us.  To  the  thoughts 
of  that  state  of  mind  he  has  a  right.  All  the  secrets 
of  that  state  of  mind  he  can  compel.  This  is  a 
law  which  statesmen  use  in  practice.  All  the  ter 
rors  of  the  French  Republic,  which  held  Austria  in 
awe,  were  unable  to  command  her  diplomacy.  But 
Napoleon  sent  to  Vienna  M.  de  Narbonne,  one  of 
the  old  noblesse,  with  the  morals,  manners  and 
name  of  that  interest,  saying,  that  it  was  indispensa 
ble  to  send  to  the  old  aristocracy  of  Europe,  men  of 
the  same  connexion,  which  in  fact,  constitutes  a 
sort  of  free-masonry.  M.  Narbonne  in  less  than  a 
fortnight  penetrated  all  the  secrets  of  the  Imperial 
Cabinet. 


io8  SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 

A  mutual  understanding  is  ever  the  firmest  chain. 
Nothing  seems  so  easy  as  to  speak  and  to  be  under 
stood.  Yet  a  man  may  come  to  find  that  the  strongest 
of  defences  and  of  ties,  —  that  he  has  been  under 
stood;  and  he  who  has  received  an  opinion  may 
come  to  find  it  the  most  inconvenient  of  bonds. 

If  a  teacher  have  any  opinion  which  he  wishes 
to  conceal,  his  pupils  will  become  as  fully  indoctri 
nated  into  that  as  into  any  which  he  publishes.  If 
you  pour  water  into  a  vessel  twisted  into  coils  and 
angles,  it  is  vain  to  say,  I  will  pour  it  only  into  this 
or  that ;  — it  will  find  its  own  level  in  all.  Men  feel 
and  act  the  consequences  of  your  doctrine  without 
being  able  to  show  how  they  follow.  Show  us  an 
arc  of  the  curve,  and  a  good  mathematician  will  find 
out  the  whole  figure.  We  are  always  reasoning  from 
the  seen  to  the  unseen.  Hence  the  perfect  intelli 
gence  that  subsists  between  wise  men  of  remote 
ages.  A  man  cannot  bury  his  meanings  so  deep  in 
his  book  but  time  and  like-minded  men  will  find 
them.  Plato  had  a  secret  doctrine,  had  he?  What 
secret  can  he  conceal  from  the  eyes  of  Bacon?  of 
Montaigne?  of  Kant?  Therefore  Aristotle  said  of  his 
works,  "  They  are  published  and  not  published." 

No  man  can  learn  what  he  has  not  preparation 
for  learning,  however  near  to  his  eyes  is  the  object. 
A  chemist  may  tell  his  most  precious  secrets  to  a 
carpenter,  and  he  shall  be  never  the  wiser,  —  the 
secrets  he  would  not  utter  to  a  chemist  for  an  estate. 
God  screens  us  evermore  from  premature  ideas. 
Our  eyes  are  holden  that  we  cannot  see  things  that 
stare  us  in  the  face,  until  the  hour  arrives  when 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  109 

the  mind  is  ripened,  —  then  we  behold  them,  and 
the  time  when  we  saw  them  not  is  like  a  dream. 

Not  in  nature  but  in  man  is  all  the  beauty  and 
worth  he  sees.  The  world  is  very  empty,  and  is 
indebted  to  this  gilding,  exalting  soul  for  all  its 
pride.  "  Earth  fills  her  lap  with  splendors  "  not  her 
own.  The  vale  of  Tempe,  Tivoli  and  Rome  are 
earth  and  water,  rocks  and  sky.  There  are  as  good 
earth  and  water  in  a  thousand  places,  yet  how 
unaifecting ! 

People  are  not  the  better  for  the  sun  and  moon, 
the  horizon  and  the  trees ;  as  it  is  not  observed  that 
the  keepers  of  Roman  galleries  or  the  valets  of 
painters  have  any  elevation  of  thought,  or  that 
librarians  are  wiser  men  than  others.  There  are 
graces  in  the  demeanor  of  a  polished  and  noble  per 
son  which  are  lost  upon  the  eye  of  a  churl.  These 
are  like  the  stars  whose  light  has  not  yet  reached  us. 

He  may  see  what  he  maketh.  Our  dreams  are 
the  sequel  of  our  waking  knowledge.  The  visions 
of  the  night  always  bear  some  proportion  to  the 
visions  of  the  day.  Hideous  dreams  are  only  exag 
gerations  of  the  sins  of  the  day.  We  see  our  own 
evil  affections  embodied  in  bad  physiognomies.  On 
the  alps  the  traveller  sometimes  sees  his  own  shadow 
magnified  to  a  giant,  so  that  every  gesture  of  his 
hand  is  terrific.  "  My  children,"  said  an  old  man 
to  his  boys  scared  by  a  figure  in  the  dark  entry, 
"  my  children,  you  will  never  see  anything  worse  than 
yourselves."  As  in  dreams,  so  in  the  scarcely  less 
fluid  events  of  the  world  every  man  sees  himself  in 
colossal,  without  knowing  that  it  is  himself  that  he 


HO  SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 

sees.  The  good  which  he  sees  compared  to  the  evil 
which  he  sees,  is  as  his  own  good  to  his  own  evil. 
Every  quality  of  his  mind  is  magnified  in  some  one 
acquaintance,  and  every  emotion  of  his  heart  in  some 
one.  He  is  like  a  quincunx  of  trees,  which  counts 
five,  east,  west,  north,  or  south ;  or  an  initial,  me 
dial,  and  terminal  acrostic.  And  why  not?  He 
cleaves  to  one  person  and  avoids  another,  according 
to  their  likeness  or  unlikeness  to  himself,  truly  seek 
ing  himself  in  his  associates  and  moreover  in  his 
trade,  and  habits,  and  gestures,  and  meats,  and 
drinks ;  and  comes  at  last  to  be  faithfully  repre 
sented  by  every  view  you  take  of  his  circumstances. 

He  may  read  what  he  writeth.  What  can  we 
see  or  acquire  but  what  we  are?  You  have  seen  a 
skilful  man  reading  Virgil.  Well,  that  author  is  a 
thousand  books  to  a  thousand  persons.  Take  the 
book  into  your  two  hands  and  read  your  eyes  out ; 
you  will  never  find  what  I  find.  If  any  ingenious 
reader  would  have  a  monopoly  of  the  wisdom  or 
delight  he  gets,  he  is  as  secure  now  the  book  is 
Englished,  as  if  it  were  imprisoned  in  the  Pelews 
tongue.  It  is  with  a  good  book  as  it  is  with  good 
company.  Introduce  a  base  person  among  gentle 
men  :  it  is  all  to  no  purpose :  he  is  not  their  fellow. 
Every  society  protects  itself.  The  company  is  per 
fectly  safe,  and  he  is  not  one  of  them,  though  his 
body  is  in  the  room. 

What  avails  it  to  fight  with  the  eternal  laws  of 
mind,  which  adjust  the  relation  of  all  persons  to  each 
other  by  the  mathematical  measure  of  their  havings 
and  beings  ?  Gertrude  is  enamored  of  Guy ;  how 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  Ill 

high,  how  aristocratic,  how  Roman  his  mien  and 
manners !  to  live  with  him  were  life  indeed :  and  no 
purchase  is  too  great ;  and  heaven  and  earth  are 
moved  to  that  end.  Well,  Gertrude  has  Guy:  but 
what  now  avails  how  high,  how  aristocratic,  how 
Roman  his  mien  and  manners,  if  his  heart  and  aims 
are  in  the  senate,  in  the  theatre  and  in  the  billiard 
room,  and  she  has  no  aims,  no  conversation  that  can 
enchant  her  graceful  lord  ? 

He  shall  have  his  own  society.  We  can  love  noth 
ing  but  nature.  The  most  wonderful  talents,  the 
most  meritorious  exertions  really  avail  very  little  with 
us  ;  but  nearness  or  likeness  of  nature, — how  beauti 
ful  is  the  ease  of  its  victory !  Persons  approach  us, 
famous  for  their  beauty,  for  their  accomplishments, 
worthy  of  all  wonder  for  their  charms  and  gifts  :  they 
dedicate  their  whole  skill  to  the  hour  and  the  com 
pany  ;  with  very  imperfect  result.  To  be  sure  it 
would  be  very  ungrateful  in  us  not  to  praise  them 
very  loudly.  Then,  when  all  is  done,  a  person  of 
related  mind,  a  brother  or  sister  by  nature,  comes  to 
us  so  softly  and  easily,  so  nearly  and  intimately,  as  if 
it  were  the  blood  in  our  proper  veins,  that  we  feel  as 
if  some  one  was  gone,  instead  of  another  having 
come :  we  are  utterly  relieved  and  refreshed :  it  is  a 
sort  of  joyful  solitude.  We  foolishly  think  in  our 
days  of  sin  that  we  must  court  friends  by  compliance 
to  the  customs  of  society,  to  its  dress,  its  breeding, 
and  its  estimates.  But  later  if  we  are  so  happy  we 
learn  that  only  that  soul  can  be  my  friend  which  I 
encounter  on  the  line  of  my  own  march,  that  soul  to 
which  I  do  not  decline  and  which  does  not  decline 


112  SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 

to  me,  but,  native  of  the  same  celestial  latitude, 
repeats  in  its  own  all  my  experience.  The  scholar 
and  the  prophet  forget  themselves  and  ape  the  cus 
toms  and  costumes  of  the  man  of  the  world  to  deserve 
the  smile  of  beauty.  He  is  a  fool  and  follows  some 
giddy  girl,  and  not  with  religious,  ennobling  passion 
a  woman  with  all  that  is  serene,  oracular  and  beauti 
ful  in  her  soul.  Let  him  be  great,  and  love  shall  fol 
low  him.  Nothing  is  more  deeply  punished  than  the 
neglect  of  the  affinities  by  which  alone  society  should 
be  formed,  and  the  insane  levity  of  choosing  associ 
ates  by  others'  eyes. 

He  may  set  his  own  rate.  It  is  an  universal  maxim 
worthy  of  all  acceptation  that  a  man  may  have  that 
allowance  he  takes.  Take  the  place  and  attitude  to 
which  you  see  your  unquestionable  right  and  all  men 
acquiesce.  The  world  must  be  just.  It  always  leaves 
every  man,  with  profound  unconcern,  to  set  his  own 
rate.  Hero  or  driveller,  it  meddles  not  in  the  matter. 
It  will  certainly  accept  your  own  measure  of  your 
doing  and  being,  whether  you  sneak  about  and  deny 
your  own  name,  or  whether  you  see  your  work  pro 
duced  to  the  concave  sphere  of  the  heavens,  one  with 
the  revolution  of  the  stars. 

The  same  reality  pervades  all  teaching.  The  man 
may  teach  by  doing,  and  not  otherwise.  If  he  can 
communicate  himself  he  can  teach,  but  not  by  words. 
He  teaches  who  gives,  and  he  learns  who  receives. 
There  is  no  teaching  until  the  pupil  is  brought  into 
the  same  state  or  principle  in  which  you  are  ;  a  trans 
fusion  takes  place  ;  he  is  you  and  you  are  he  ;  then  is 
a  teaching,  and  by  no  unfriendly  chance  or  bad  com- 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  113 

pany  can  he  ever  quite  lose  the  benefit.  But  your 
propositions  run  out  of  one  ear  as  they  ran  in  at  the 
other.  We  see  it  advertised  that  Mr.  Grand  will 
deliver  an  oration  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  and  Mr. 
Hand  before  the  Mechanics1  Association,  and  we  do 
not  go  thither,  because  we  know  that  these  gentle 
men  will  not  communicate  their  own  character  and 
being  to  the  company.  If  we  had  reason  to  expect 
such  a  communication  we  should  go  through  all 
inconvenience  and  opposition.  The  sick  would  be 
carried  in  litters.  But  a  public  oration  is  an  esca 
pade,  a  non-committal,  an  apology,  a  gag,  and  not  a 
communication,  not  a  speech,  not  a  man. 

A  like  Nemesis  presides  over  all  intellectual  works. 
We  have  yet  to  learn  that  the  thing  uttered  in  words 
is  not  therefore  affirmed.  It  must  affirm  itself,  or  no 
forms  of  grammar  and  no  plausibility  can  give  it  evi 
dence  and  no  array  of  arguments.  The  sentence 
must  also  contain  its  own  apology  for  being  spoken. 

The  effect  of  any  writing  on  the  public  mind  is 
mathematically  measurable  by  its  depth  of  thought. 
How  much  water  does  it  draw?  If  it  awaken  you  to 
think  ;  if  it  lift  you  from  your  feet  with  the  great  voice 
of  eloquence  ;  then  the  effect  is  to  be  wide,  slow,  per 
manent,  over  the  minds  of  men  ;  if  the  pages  instruct 
you  not,  they  will  die  like  flies  in  the  hour.  The 
way  to  speak  and  write  what  shall  not  go  out  of  fash 
ion  is  to  speak  and  write  sincerely.  The  argument 
which  has  not  power  to  reach  my  own  practice,  I  may 
well  doubt  will  fail  to  reach  yours.  But  take  Sid 
ney's  maxim :  *'  Look  in  thy  heart,  and  write."  He 
that  writes  to  himself  writes  to  an  eternal  public. 


114  SPIRITUAL   LAWS. 

That  statement  only  is  fit  to  be  made  public  which 
you  have  come  at  in  attempting  to  satisfy  your  own 
curiosity.  The  writer  who  takes  his  subject  from  his 
ear  and  not  from  his  heart  should  know  that  he  has 
lost  as  much  as  he  seems  to  have  gained,  and  when 
the  empty  book  has  gathered  all  its  praise,  and  half 
the  people  say,  —  '  what  poetry !  what  genius  ! '  it  still 
needs  fuel  to  make  fire.  That  only  profits  which  is 
profitable.  Life  alone  can  impart  life;  and  though 
we  should  burst  we  can  only  be  valued  as  we  make 
ourselves  valuable.  There  is  no  luck  in  literary  repu 
tation.  They  who  make  up  the  final  verdict  upon 
every  book  are  not  -the  partial  and  noisy  readers  of 
the  hour  when  it  appears,  but  a  court  as  of  angels,  a 
public  not  to  be  bribed,  not  to  be  entreated  and  not 
to  be  overawed,  decides  upon  every  man's  title  to 
fame.  Only  those  books  come  down  which  deserve 
to  last.  All  the  gilt  edges,  vellum  and  morocco,  all 
the  presentation-copies  to  all  the  libraries  will  not 
preserve  a  book  in  circulation  beyond  its  intrinsic 
date.  It  must  go  with  all  Walpole's  Noble  and  Royal 
Authors  to  its  fate.  Blackmore,  Kotzebue,  or  Pollok 
may  endure  for  a  night,  but  Moses  and  Homer  stand 
forever.  There  are  not  in  the  world  at  any  one  time 
more  than  a  dozen  persons  who  read  and  understand 
Plato :  —  never  enough  to  pay  for  an  edition  of  his 
works ;  yet  to  every  generation  these  come  duly 
down,  for  the  sake  of  those  few  persons,  as  if  God 
brought  them  in  his  hand.  "  No  book,"  said  Bent- 
ley,  "  was  ever  written  down  by  any  but  itself."  The 
permanence  of  all  books  is  fixed  by  no  effort,  friendly 
or  hostile,  but  by  their  own  specific  gravity,  or  the 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  115 

intrinsic  importance  of  their  contents  to  the  constant 
mind  of  man.  "Do  not  trouble  yourself  too  much 
about  the  light  on  your  statue,"  said  Michael  Angelo 
to  the  young  sculptor  ;  "  the  light  of  the  public  square 
will  test  its  value." 

In  like  manner  the  effect  of  every  action  is  meas 
ured  by  the  depth  of  the  sentiment  from  which  it 
proceeds.  The  great  man  knew  not  that  he  was 
great.  It  took  a  century  or  two  for  that  fact  to 
appear.  What  he  did,  he  did  because  he  must: 
he  used  no  election :  it  was  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world,  and  grew  out  of  the  circumstances 
of  the  moment.  But  now,  every  thing  he  did,  even 
to  the  lifting  of  his  finger  or  the  eating  of  bread, 
looks  large,  all-related,  and  is  called  an  institution. 

These  are  the  demonstrations  in  a  few  particulars 
of  the  genius  of  nature :  they  show  the  direction  of 
the  stream.  But  the  stream  is  blood :  every  drop 
is  alive.  Truth  has  not  single  victories :  all  things 
are  its  organs,  not  only  dust  and  stones,  but  errors 
and  lies.  The  laws  of  disease,  physicians  say,  are 
as  beautiful  as  the  laws  of  health.  Our  philosophy 
is  affirmative  and  readily  accepts  the  testimony  of 
negative  facts,  as  every  shadow  points  to  the  sun. 
By  a  divine  necessity  every  fact  in  nature  is  con 
strained  to  offer  its  testimony. 

Human  character  does  evermore  publish  itself. 
It  will  not  be  concealed.  It  hates  darkness  —  it 
rushes  into  light.  The  most  fugitive  deed  and  word, 
the  mere  air  of  doing  a  thing,  the  intimated  purpose, 
expresses  character.  If  you  act  you  show  character ; 
if  you  sit  still  you  show  it ;  if  you  sleep  you  show  it. 


n6  SPIRITUAL   LAWS. 

You  think  because  you  have  spoken  nothing  when 
others  spoke,  and  have  given  no  opinion  on  the 
times,  on  the  church,  on  slavery,  on  the  college,  on 
parties  and  persons,  that  your  verdict  is  still  expected 
with  curiosity  as  a  reserved  wisdom.  Far  other 
wise  ;  your  silence  answers  very  loud.  You  have  no 
oracle  to  utter,  and  your  fellow-men  have  learned 
that  you  cannot  help  them  ;  for  oracles  speak.  Doth 
not  wisdom  cry  and  understanding  put  forth  her 
voice? 

Dreadful  limits  are  set  in  nature  to  the  powers  of 
dissimulation.  Truth  tyrannizes  over  the  unwilling 
members  of  the  body.  Faces  never  lie,  it  is  said. 
No  man  need  be  deceived  who  will  study  the  changes 
of  expression.  When  a  man  speaks  the  truth  in  the 
spirit  of  truth,  his  eye  is  as  clear  as  the  heavens. 
When  he  has  base  ends  and  speaks  falsely,  the  eye 
is  muddy  and  sometimes  asquint. 

I  have  heard  an  experienced  counsellor  say  that  he 
never  feared  the  effect  upon  a  jury  of  a  lawyer  who 
does  not  believe  in  his  heart  that  his  client  ought  to 
have  a  verdict.  If  he  does  not  believe  it  his  unbelief 
will  appear  to  the  jury,  despite  all  his  protestations, 
and  will  become  their  unbelief.  This  is  that  law 
whereby  a  work  of  art,  of  whatever  kind,  sets  us  in 
the  same  state  of  mind  wherein  the  artist  was  when 
he  made  it.  That  which  we  do  not  believe  we  cannot 
adequately  say,  though  we  may  repeat  the  words 
never  so  often.  It  was  this  conviction  which  Swe- 
denborg  expressed  when  he  described  a  group  of  per 
sons  in  the  spiritual  world  endeavoring  in  vain  to 
articulate  a  proposition  which  they  did  not  believe ; 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  117 

but  they  could  not,  though  they  twisted  and  folded 
their  lips  even  to  indignation. 

A  man  passes  for  that  he  is  worth.  Very  idle  is 
all  curiosity  concerning  other  peoples'  estimate  of  us, 
and  idle  is  all  fear  of  remaining  unknown.  If  a  man 
know  that  he  can  do  anything,  —  that  he  can  do  it 
better  than  any  one  else,  —  he  has  a  pledge  of  the 
acknowledgment  of  that  fact  by  all  persons.  The 
world  is  full  of  judgment-days,  and  into  every  assem 
bly  that  a  man  enters,  in  every  action  he  attempts, 
he  is  gauged  and  stamped.  In  every  troop  of  boys 
that  whoop  and  run  in  each  yard  and  square,  a  new 
comer  is  as  well  and  accurately  weighed  in  the  bal 
ance  in  the  course  of  a  few  days  and  stamped  with 
his  right  number,  as  if  he  had  undergone  a  formal 
trial  of  his  strength,  speed  and  temper.  A  stranger 
comes  from  a  distant  school,  with  better  dress,  with 
trinkets  in  his  pockets,  with  airs  and  pretensions ;  an 
old  boy  sniffs  thereat  and  says  to  himself,  '  It's  of  no 
use  ;  we  shall  find  him  out  to-morrow.'  *  What  hath 
he  done?'  is  the  divine  question  which  searches  men 
and  transpierces  every  false  reputation.  A  fop  may 
sit  in  any  chair  of  the  world  nor  be  distinguished  for 
his  hour  from  Homer  and  Washington ;  but  there 
can  never  be  any  doubt  concerning  the  respective 
ability  of  human  beings  when  we  seek  the  truth. 
Pretension  may  sit  still,  but  cannot  act.  Pretension 
never  feigned  an  act  of  real  greatness.  Pretension 
never  wrote  an  Iliad,  nor  drove  back  Xerxes,  nor 
christianized  the  world,  nor  abolished  slavery. 

Always  as  much  virtue  as  there  is,  so  much  ap 
pears  ;  as  much  goodness  as  there  is,  so  much  rever- 


Il8  SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 

ence  it  commands.  All  the  devils  respect  virtue. 
The  high,  the  generous,  the  self-devoted  sect  will 
always  instruct  and  command  mankind.  Never  a 
sincere  word  was  utterly  lost.  Never  a  magnanimity 
fell  to  the  ground.  Always  the  heart  of  man  greets 
and  accepts  it  unexpectedly.  A  man  passes  for  tnat 
he  is  worth.  What  he  is  engraves  itself  on  his  face, 
on  his  form,  on  his  fortunes,  in  letters  of  light  which 
all  men  may  read  but  himself.  Concealment  avails 
him  nothing ;  boasting  nothing.  There  is  confession 
in  the  glances  of  our  eyes ;  in  our  smiles ;  in  saluta 
tions  ;  and  the  grasp  of  hands.  His  sin  bedaubs 
him,  mars  all  his  good  impression.  Men  know  not 
why  they  do  not  trust  him ;  but  they  do  not  trust 
him.  His  vice  glasses  his  eye,  demeans  his  cheek, 
pinches  the  nose,  sets  the  mark  of  the  beast  on  the 
back  of  the  head,  and  writes  O  fool !  fool !  on  the 
forehead  of  a  king. 

If  you  would  not  be  known  to  do  anything,  never 
do  it.  A  man  may  play  the  fool  in  the  drifts  of  a 
desert,  but  every  grain  of  sand  shall  seem  to  see. 
He  may  be  a  solitary  eater,  but  he  cannot  keep  his 
foolish  counsel.  A  broken  complexion,  a  swinish 
look,  ungenerous  acts  and  the  want  of  due  knowledge, 
—  all  blab.  Can  a  cook,  a  Chiffinch,  an  lachimo  be 
mistaken  for  Zeno  or  Paul?  Confucius  exclaimed, 
"  How  can  a  man  be  concealed  !  How  can  a  man  be 
concealed ! " 

On  the  other  hand,  the  hero  fears  not  that  if  he 
withhold  the  avowal  of  a  just  and  brave  act  it  will  go 
unwitnessed  and  unloved.  One  knows  it,  himself,  — 
and  is  pledged  by  it  to  sweetness  of  peace  and  to 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS.  119 

nobleness  of  aim  which  will  prove  in  the  end  a  better 
proclamation  of  it  than  the  relating  of  the  incident. 
Virtue  is  the  adherence  in  action  to  the  nature  of 
things,  and  the  nature  of  things  makes  it  prevalent. 
It  consists  in  a  perpetual  substitution  of  being  for 
seeming,  and  with  sublime  propriety  God  is  described 
as  saying,  I  AM. 

The  lesson  which  these  observations  convey  is,  Be, 
and  not  seem.  Let  us  acquiesce.  Let  us  take  our 
bloated  nothingness  out  of  the  path  of  the  divine  cir 
cuits.  Let  us  unlearn  our  wisdom  of  the  world.  Let 
us  lie  low  in  the  Lord's  power  and  learn  that  truth 
alone  makes  rich  and  great. 

If  you  visit  your  friend,  why  need  you  apologize 
for  not  having  visited  him,  and  waste  his  time  and 
deface  your  own  act?  Visit  him  now.  Let  him  feel 
that  the  highest  love  has  come  to  see  him,  in  thee  its 
lowest  organ.  Or  why  need  you  torment  yourself 
and  friend  by  secret  self-reproaches  that  you  have  not 
assisted  him  or  complimented  him  with  gifts  and 
salutations  heretofore?  Be  a  gift  and  a  benediction. 
Shine  with  real  light  and  not  with  the  borrowed  re 
flection  of  gifts.  Common  men  are  apologies  for 
men ;  they  bow  the  head,  they  excuse  themselves 
with  prolix  reasons,  they  accumulate  appearances  be 
cause  the  substance  is  not. 

We  are  full  of  these  superstitions  of  sense,  the 
worship  of  magnitude.  God  loveth  not  size :  whale 
and  minnow  are  of  like  dimension.  But  we  call  the 
poet  inactive,  because  he  is  not  a  president,  a  mer 
chant,  or  a  porter.  We  adore  an  institution,  and 
do  not  see  that  it  is  founded  on  a  thought  which  we 


120  SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 

have.  But  real  action  is  in  silent  moments.  The 
epochs  of  our  life  are  not  in  the  visible  facts  of  our 
choice  of  a  calling,  our  marriage,  our  acquisition  of 
an  office,  and  the  like,  but  in  a  silent  thought  by  the 
wayside  as  we  walk ;  in  a  thought  which  revises  our 
entire  manner  of  life  and  says,  '  Thus  hast  thou  done, 
but  it  were  better  thus.'  And  all  our  after  years,  like 
menials,  do  serve  and  wait  on  this,  and  according  to 
their  ability  do  execute  its  will.  This  revisal  or  cor 
rection  is  a  constant  force,  which,  as  a  tendency, 
reaches  through  our  lifetime.  The  object  of  the 
man,  the  aim  of  these  moments,  is  to  make  daylight 
shine  through  him,  to  suffer  the  law  to  traverse  his 
whole  being  without  obstruction,  so  that  on  what 
point  soever  of  his  doing  your  eye  falls  it  shall  report 
truly  of  his  character,  whether  it  be  his  diet,  his  house, 
his  religious  forms,  his  society,  his  mirth,  his  vote, 
his  opposition.  Now  he  is  not  homogeneous,  but 
heterogeneous,  and  the  ray  does  not  traverse ;  there 
are  no  thorough  lights,  but  the  eye  of  the  beholder 
is  puzzled,  detecting  many  unlike  tendencies  and  a 
life  not  yet  at  one. 

Why  should  we  make  it  a  point  with  our  false 
modesty  to  disparage  that  man  we  are  and  that 
form  of  being  assigned  to  us  ?  A  good  man  is  con 
tented.  I  love  and  honor  Epaminondas,  but  I  do 
not  wish  to  be  Epaminondas.  I  hold  it  more  just 
to  love  the  world  of  this  hour  than  the  world  of  his 
hour.  Nor  can  you,  if  I  am  true,  excite  me  to  the 
least  uneasiness  by  saying,  *  he  acted  and  thou  sittest 
still.1  I  see  action  to  be  good,  when  the  need  is, 
and  sitting  still  to  be  also  good.  Epaminondas,  if 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS.  1 21 

he  was  the  man  I  take  him  for,  would  have  sat  still 
with  joy  and  peace,  if  his  lot  had  been  mine.  Heaven 
is  large,  and  affords  space  for  all  modes  of  love  and 
fortitude.  Why  should  we  be  busy-bodies  and  super- 
serviceable?  Action  and  inaction  are  alike  to  the 
true.  One  piece  of  the  tree  is  cut  for  a  weathercock 
and  one  for  the  sleeper  of  a  bridge ;  the  virtue  of  the 
wood  is  apparent  in  both. 

I  desire  not  to  disgrace  the  soul.  The  fact  that 
I  am  here  certainly  shows  me  that  the  soul  had  need 
of  an  organ  here.  Shall  I  not  assume  the  post? 
Shall  I  skulk  and  dodge  and  duck  with  my  unsea 
sonable  apologies  and  vain  modesty  and  imagine  my 
being  here  impertinent?  less  pertinent  than  Epaminon- 
das  or  Homer  being  there?  and  that  the  soul  did  not 
know  its  own  needs?  Besides,  without  any  reason 
ing  on  the  matter,  I  have  no  discontent.  The  good 
soul  nourishes  me  alway,  unlocks  new  magazines  of 
power  and  enjoyment  to  me  every  day.  I  will  not 
meanly  decline  the  immensity  of  good,  because  I  have 
heard  that  it  has  come  to  others  in  another  shape. 

Besides,  why  should  we  be  cowed  by  the  name  of 
Action?  'T  is  a  trick  of  the  senses, — no  more. 
We  know  that  the  ancestor  of  every  action  is  a 
thought.  The  poor  mind  does  not  seem  to  itself 
to  be  any  thing  unless  it  have  an  outside  badge,  — 
some  Gentoo  diet,  or  Quaker  coat,  or  Calvinistic 
prayer-meeting,  or  philanthropic  society,  or  a  great 
donation,  or  a  high  office,  or,  any  how,  some  wild 
contrasting  action  to  testify  that  it  is  somewhat. 
The  rich  mind  lies  in  the  sun  and  sleeps,  and  is 
Nature.  To  think  is  to  act. 


122  SPIRITUAL   LAWS. 

Let  us,  if  we  must  have  great  actions,  make  our 
own  so.  All  action  is  of  an  infinite  elasticity,  and 
the  least  admits  of  being  inflated  with  the  celestial 
air  until  it  eclipses  the  sun  and  moon.  Let  us 
seek  one  peace  by  fidelity.  Let  me  do  my  duties. 
Why  need  I  go  gadding  into  the  scenes  and  philos 
ophy  of  Greek  and  Italian  history  before  I  have 
washed  my  own  face  or  justified  myself  to  my  bene 
factors?  How  dare  I  read  Washington's  campaigns 
when  I  have  not  answered  the  letters  of  my  own 
correspondents?  Is  not  that  a  just  objection  to 
much  of  our  reading?  It  is  a  pusillanimous  deser 
tion  of  our  work  to  gaze  after  our  neighbors.  It  is 
peeping.  Byron  says  of  Jack  Bunting, 

He  knew  not  what  to  say,  and  so  he  swore. 

I  may  say  it  of  our  preposterous  use  of  books.  He 
knew  not  what  to  do,  and  so  he  read.  I  can  think 
of  nothing  to  fill  my  time  with,  and  I  find  the  Life  of 
Brant.  It  is  a  very  extravagant  compliment  to  pay 
to  Brant,  or  to  General  Schuyler,  or  to  General 
Washington.  My  time  should  be  as  good  as  their 
time :  my  world,  my  facts,  all  my  net  of  relations,  as 
good  as  theirs,  or  either  of  theirs.  Rather  let  me  do 
my  work  so  well  that  other  idlers  if  they  choose  may 
compare  my  texture  with  the  texture  of  these  and  find 
it  identical  with  the  best. 

This  over-estimate  of  the  possibilities  of  Paul  and 
Pericles,  this  under-estimate  of  our  own,  comes  from 
a  neglect  of  the  fact  of  an  identical  nature.  Bona 
parte  knew  but  one  Merit,  and  rewarded  in  one  and 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  123 

the  same  way  the  good  soldier,  the  good  astronomer, 
the  good  poet,  the  good  player.  Thus  he  signified 
his  sense  of  a  great  fact.  The  poet  uses  the  names 
of  Caesar,  of  Tamerlane,  of  Bonduca,  of  Belisarius ; 
the  painter  uses  the  conventional  story  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  of  Paul,  of  Peter.  He  does  not  therefore  defer 
to  the  nature  of  these  accidental  men,  of  these  stock 
heroes.  If  the  poet  write  a  true  drama,  then  he  is 
Caesar,  and  not  the  player  of  Caesar ;  then  the  self 
same  strain  of  thought,  emotion  as  pure,  wit  as  subtle, 
motions  as  swift,  mounting,  extravagant,  and  a  heart 
as  great,  self-sufficing,  dauntless,  which  on  the  waves 
of  its  love  and  hope  can  uplift  all  that  is  reckoned 
solid  and  precious  in  the  world,  palaces,  gardens, 
money,  navies,  kingdoms,  —  marking  its  own  incom 
parable  worth  by  the  slight  it  casts  on  these  gauds  of 
men ;  —  these  all  are  his,  and  by  the  power  of  these 
he  rouses  the  nations.  But  the  great  names  cannot 
stead  him,  if  he  have  not  life  himself.  Let  a  man 
believe  in  God,  and  not  in  names  and  places  and 
persons.  Let  the  great  soul  incarnated  in  some 
woma^s  form,  poor  and  sad  and  single,  in  some 
Dolly  or  Joan,  go  out  to  service  and  sweep  cham 
bers  and  scour  floors,  and  its  effulgent  day-beams 
cannot  be  muffled  or  hid,  but  to  sweep  and  scour 
will  instantly  appear  supreme  and  beautiful  actions, 
the  top  and  radiance  of  human  life,  and  all  people 
will  get  mops  and  brooms ;  until,  lo,  suddenly  the 
great  soul  has  enshrined  itself  in  some  other  form 
and  done  some  other  deed,  and  that  is  now  the 
flower  and  head  of  all  living  nature. 


124  SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 

We  are  the  photometers,  we  the  irritable  gold- 
leaf  and  tinfoil  that  measure  the  accumulations  of 
the  subtle  element.  We  know  the  authentic  effects 
of  the  true  fire  through  every  one  of  its  million  dis 
guises. 


ESSAY    V. 

LOVE. 

EVERY  soul  is  a  celestial  Venus  to  every  other 
soul.  The  heart  has  its  sabbaths  and  jubilees  in 
which  the  world  appears  as  a  hymeneal  feast,  and 
all  natural  sounds  and  the  circle  of  the  seasons 
are  erotic  odes  and  dances.  Love  is  omnipresent 
in  nature  as  motive  and  reward.  Love  is  our  highest 
word  and  the  synonym  of  God. 

Every  promise  of  the  soul  has  innumerable  ful 
filments  ;  each  of  its  joys  ripens  into  a  new  want. 
Nature,  unobtainable,  flowing,  forelooking,  in  the 
first  sentiment  of  kindness  anticipates  already  a  be 
nevolence  which  shall  lose  all  particular  regards  in 
its  general  light.  The  introduction  to  this  felicity  is 
in  a  private  and  tender  relation  of  one  to  one,  which 
is  the  enchantment  of  human  life ;  which,  like  a  cer 
tain  divine  rage  and  enthusiasm,  seizes  on  man  at  one 
period  and  works  a  revolution  in  his  mind  and  body ; 
unites  him  to  his  race,  pledges  him  to  the  domestic 
and  civic  relations,  carries  him  with  new  sympathy 
into  nature,  enhances  the  power  of  the  senses,  opens 
the  imagination,  adds  to  his  character  heroic  and 
sacred  attributes,  establishes  marriage  and  gives  per 
manence  to  human  society. 

125 


126  LOVE. 

The  natural  association  of  the  sentiment  of  love 
with  the  heyday  of  the  blood  seems  to  require  that 
in  order  to  portray  it  in  vivid  tints,  which  every 
youth  and  maid  should  confess  to  be  true  to  their 
throbbing  experience,  one  must  not  be  too  old.  The 
delicious  fancies  of  youth  reject  the  least  savor  of 
a  mature  philosophy,  as  chilling  with  age  and  ped 
antry  their  purple  bloom.  And  therefore  I  know  I 
incur  the  imputation  of  unnecessary  hardness  and 
stoicism  from  those  who  compose  the  Court  and 
Parliament  of  Love.  But  from  these  formidable 
censors  I  shall  appeal  to  my  seniors.  For,  it  is  to  be 
considered  that  this  passion  of  which  we  speak, 
though  it  begin  with  the  young,  yet  forsakes  not  the 
old,  or  rather  suffers  no  one  who  is  truly  its  servant 
to  grow  old,  but  makes  the  aged  participators  of  it 
not  less  than  the  tender  maiden,  though  in  a  differ 
ent  and  nobler  sort.  For  it  is  a  fire  that  kindling 
its  first  embers  in  the  narrow  nook  of  a  private 
bosom,  caught  from  a  wandering  spark  out  of  another 
private  heart,  glows  and  enlarges  until  it  warms 
and  beams  upon  multitudes  of  men  and  women, 
upon  the  universal  heart  of  all,  and  so  lights  up 
the  whole  world  and  all  nature  with  its  generous 
flames.  It  matters  not  therefore  whether  we  attempt 
to  describe  the  passion  at  twenty,  at  thirty,  or  at 
eighty  years.  He  who  paints  it  at  the  first  period 
will  lose  some  of  its  later,  he  who  paints  it  at  the 
last,  some  of  its  earlier  traits.  Only  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  by  patience  and  the  muses'  aid  we  may 
attain  to  that  inward  view  of  the  law  which  shall 
describe  a  truth  ever  young,  ever  beautiful,  so  cen- 


LOVE.  127 

tral  that  it  shall  commend  itself  to  the  eye  at  what 
ever  angle  beholden. 

And  the  first  condition  is  that  we  must  leave  a 
too  close  and  lingering  adherence  to  the  actual,  to 
facts,  and  study  the  sentiment  as  it  appeared  in 
hope,  and  not  in  history.  For  each  man  sees  his 
own  life  defaced  and  disfigured,  as  the  life  of  man 
is  not  to  his  imagination.  Each  man  sees  over  his 
own  experience  a  certain  slime  of  error,  whilst  that 
of  other  men  looks  fair  and  ideal.  Let  any  man  go 
back  to  those  delicious  relations  which  make  the 
beauty  of  his  life,  which  have  given  him  sincerest 
instruction  and  nourishment,  he  will  shrink  and 
shrink.  Alas !  I  know  not  why,  but  infinite  com 
punctions  embitter  in  mature  life  all  the  remem 
brances  of  budding  sentiment,  and  cover  every 
beloved  name.  Every  thing  is  beautiful  seen  from 
the  point  of  the  intellect,  or  as  truth.  But  all  is  sour 
if  seen  as  experience.  Details  are  always  melancholy ; 
the  plan  is  seemly  and  noble.  It  is  strange  how 
painful  is  the  actual  world  —  the  painful  kingdom  of 
time  and  place.  There  dwells  care  and  canker  and 
fear.  With  thought,  with  the  ideal,  is  immortal 
hilarity,  the  rose  of  joy.  Round  it  all  the  muses 
sing.  But  with  names  and  persons  and  the  partial 
interests  of  to-day  and  yesterday  is  grief. 

The  strong  bent  of  nature  is  seen  in  the  propor 
tion  which  this  topic  of  personal  relations  usurps 
in  the  conversation  of  society.  What  do  we  wish 
to  know  of  any  worthy  person  so  much  as  how  he 
has  sped  in  the  history  of  this  sentiment?  What 
books  in  the  circulating  libraries  circulate?  How 


128  LOVE. 

we  glow  over  these  novels  of  passion,  when  the 
story  is  told  with  any  spark  of  truth  and  nature ! 
And  what  fastens  attention,  in  the  intercourse  of 
life,  like  any  passage  betraying  affection  between 
two  parties?  Perhaps  we  never  saw  them  before 
and  never  shall  meet  them  again.  But  we  see  them 
exchange  a  glance  or  betray  a  deep  emotion,  and 
we  are  no  longer  strangers.  We  understand  them 
and  take  the  warmest  interest  in  the  development 
of  the  romance.  All  mankind  love  a  lover.  The 
earliest  demonstrations  of  complacency  and  kind 
ness  are  nature's  most  winning  pictures.  It  is  the 
dawn  of  civility  and  grace  in  the  coarse  and  rustic. 
The  rude  village  boy  teazes  the  girls  about  the 
school-house  door ;  —  but  to-day  he  comes  running 
into  the  entry  and  meets  one  fair  child  arranging 
her  satchel :  he  holds  her  books  to  help  her,  and 
instantly  it  seems  to  him  as  if  she  removed  her 
self  from  him  infinitely,  and  was  a  sacred  precinct. 
Among  the  throng  of  girls  he  runs  rudely  enough, 
but  one  alone  distances  him  :  and  these  two  little 
neighbors,  that  were  so  close  just  now,  have  learned 
to  respect  each  other's  personality.  Or  who  can 
avert  his  eyes  from  the  engaging,  half- artful,  half- 
artless  ways  of  school-girls  who  go  into  the  country 
shops  to  buy  a  skein  of  silk  or  a  sheet  of  paper,  and 
talk  half  an  hour  about  nothing  with  the  broad- 
faced,  good-natured  shop-boy.  In  the  village  they 
are  on  a  perfect  equality,  which  love  delights  in, 
and  without  any  coquetry  the  happy,  affectionate 
nature  of  woman  flows  out  in  this  pretty  gossip. 
The  girls  may  have  little  beauty,  yet  plainly  do  they 


LOVE.  129 

establish  between  them  and  the  good  boy  the  most 
agreeable,  confiding  relations ;  what  with  their  fun 
and  their  earnestness,  about  Edgar  and  Jonas  and 
Almira,  and  who  was  invited  to  the  party,  and  who 
danced  at  the  dancing-school,  and  when  the  sing 
ing-school  would  begin,  and  other  nothings  con 
cerning  which  the  parties  cooed.  By-and-by  that 
boy  wants  a  wife,  and  very  truly  and  heartily  will 
he  know  where  to  find  a  sincere  and  sweet  mate, 
without  any  risk  such  as  Milton  deplores  as  incident 
to  scholars  and  great  men. 

I  have  been  told  that  my  philosophy  is  unsocial 
and  that  in  public  discourses  my  reverence  for  the 
intellect  makes  me  unjustly  cold  to  the  personal  rela 
tions.  But  now  I  almost  shrink  at  the  remembrance 
of  such  disparaging  words.  For  persons  are  love's 
world,  and  the  coldest  philosopher  cannot  recount 
the  debt  of  the  young  soul  wandering  here  in  nature 
to  the  power  of  love,  without  being  tempted  to  unsay, 
as  treasonable  to  nature,  aught  derogatory  to  the 
social  instincts.  For,  though  the  celestial  rapture 
falling  out  of  heaven  seizes  only  upon  those  of  tender 
age,  and  although  a  beauty  overpowering  all  analysis 
or  comparison  and  putting  us  quite  beside  ourselves 
we  can  seldom  see  after  thirty  years,  yet  the  remem 
brance  of  these  visions  outlasts  all  other  remem 
brances,  and  is  a  wreath  of  flowers  on  the  oldest 
brows.  But  here  is  a  strange  fact ;  it  may  seem  to 
many  men,  in  revising  their  experience,  that  they  have 
no  fairer  page  in  their  lifers  book  than  the  delicious 
memory  of  some  passages  wherein  affection  contrived 
to  give  a  witchcraft,  surpassing  the  deep  attraction  of 


13°  LOVE. 

its  own  truth,  to  a  parcel  of  accidental  and  trivial  cir 
cumstances.  In  looking  backward  they  may  find  that 
several  things  which  were  not  the  charm  have  more 
reality  to  this  groping  memory  than  the  charm  itself 
which  embalmed  them.  But  be  our  experience  in 
particulars  what  it  may,  no  man  ever  forgot  the  visi 
tations  of  that  power  to  his  heart  and  brain,  which 
created  all  things  new ;  which  was  the  dawn  in  him 
of  music,  poetry  and  art ;  which  made  the  face  of 
nature  radiant  with  purple  light,  the  morning  and  the 
night  varied  enchantments ;  when  a  single  tone  of 
one  voice  could  make  the  heart  beat,  and  the  most 
trivial  circumstance  associated  with  one  form  is  put 
in  the  amber  of  memory ;  when  he  became  all  eye 
when  one  was  present,  and  all  memory  when  one  was 
gone  ;  when  the  youth  becomes  a  watcher  of  windows 
and  studious  of  a  glove,  a  veil,  a  ribbon,  or  the 
wheels  of  a  carriage ;  when  no  place  is  too  solitary 
and  none  too  silent  for  him  who  has  richer  company 
and  sweeter  conversation  in  his  new  thoughts  than 
any  old  friends,  though  best  and  purest,  can  give 
him ;  for,  the  figures,  the  motions,  the  words  of  the 
beloved  object  are  not,  like  other  images,  written  in 
water,  but,  as  Plutarch  said,  "  enamelled  in  fire,"  and 
make  the  study  of  midnight. 

Thou  art  not  gone  being  gone,  where  e'er  thou  art, 
Thou  leav'st  in  him  thy  watchful  eyes,  in  him  thy  loving 
heart. 

In  the  noon  and  the  afternoon  of  life  we  still  throb  at 
the  recollection  of  days  when  happiness  was  not 
happy  enough,  but  must  be  drugged  with  the  relish 


LOVE.  131 

of  pain  and  fear ;  for  he  touched  the  secret  of  the 
matter  who  said  of  love, 

All  other  pleasures  are  not  worth  its  pains : 

and  when  the  day  was  not  long  enough,  but  the  night 
too  must  be  consumed  in  keen  recollections ;  when 
the  head  boiled  all  night  on  the  pillow  with  the 
generous  deed  it  resolved  on ;  when  the  moonlight 
was  a  pleasing  fever  and  the  stars  were  letters  and 
the  flowers  ciphers  and  the  air  was  coined  into  song ; 
when  all  business  seemed  an  impertinence,  and  all 
the  men  and  women  running  to  and  fro  in  the  streets, 
mere  pictures. 

The  passion  re-makes  the  world  for  the  youth.  It 
makes  all  things  alive  and  significant.  Nature  grows 
conscious.  Every  bird  on  the  boughs  of  the  tree 
sings  now  to  his  heart  and  soul.  Almost  the  notes 
are  articulate.  The  clouds  have  faces  as  he  looks  on 
them.  The  trees  of  the  forest,  the  waving  grass  and 
the  peeping  flowers  have  grown  intelligent;  and 
almost  he  fears  to  trust  them  with  the  secret  which 
they  seem  to  invite.  Yet  nature  soothes  and  sympa 
thizes.  In  the  green  solitude  he  finds  a  dearer  home 
than  with  men. 

Fountain-heads  and  pathless  groves, 
Places  which  pale  passion  loves, 
Moonlight  walks,  when  all  the  fowls 
Are  safely  housed,  save  bats  and  owls, 
A  midnight  bell,  a  passing  groan, 
These  are  the  sounds  we  feed  upon. 

Behold  there  in  the  wood  the  fine  madman !  He 
is  a  palace  of  sweet  sounds  and  sights ;  he  dilates ; 


132  LOVE. 

he  is  twice  a  man ;  he  walks  with  arms  akimbo ;  he 
soliloquizes ;  he  accosts  the  grass  and  trees  ;  he  feels 
the  blood  of  the  violet,  the  clover  and  the  lily  in  his 
veins ;  and  he  talks  with  the  brook  that  wets  his  foot. 

The  causes  that  have  sharpened  his  perceptions  of 
natural  beauty  have  made  him  love  music  and  verse. 
It  is  a  fact  often  observed,  that  men  have  written 
good  verses  under  the  inspiration  of  passion,  who 
cannot  write  well  under  any  other  circumstances. 

The  like  force  has  the  passion  over  all  his  nature. 
It  expands  the  sentiment ;  it  makes  the  clown  gentle 
and  gives  the  coward  heart.  Into  the  most  pitiful 
and  abject  it  will  infuse  a  heart  and  courage  to  defy 
.the  world,  so  only  it  have  the  countenance  of  the 
beloved  object.  In  giving  him  to  another  it  still 
more  gives  him  to  himself.  He  is  a  new  man,  with 
new  perceptions,  new  and  keener  purposes,  and  a 
religious  solemnity  of  character  and  aims.  He  does 
not  longer  appertain  to  his  family  and  society.  He 
is  somewhat.  He  is  a  person.  He  is  a  soul. 

And  here  let  us  examine  a  little  nearer  the  nature 
of  that  influence  which  is  thus  potent  over  the  human 
youth.  Let  us  approach  and  admire  Beauty,  whose 
revelation  to  man  we  now  celebrate,  —  beauty,  wel 
come  as  the  sun  wherever  it  pleases  to  shine,  which 
pleases  everybody  with  it  and  with  themselves. 
Wonderful  is  its  charm.  It  seems  sufficient  to  itself. 
The  lover  cannot  paint  his  maiden  to  his  fancy  poor 
and  solitary.  Like  a  tree  in  flower,  so  much  soft, 
budding,  informing  loveliness  is  society  for  itself; 
and  she  teaches  his  eye  why  Beauty  was  ever  painted 
with  Loves  and  Graces  attending  her  steps.  Her 


LOVE.  133 

existence  makes  the  world  rich.  Though  she  ex 
trudes  all  other  persons  from  his  attention  as  cheap 
and  unworthy,  she  indemnifies  him  by  carrying  out 
her  own  being  into  somewhat  impersonal,  large, 
mundane,  so  that  the  maiden  stands  to  him  for  a 
representative  of  all  select  things  and  virtues.  For 
that  reason  the  lover  sees  never  personal  resem 
blances  in  his  mistress  to  her  kindred  or  to  others. 
His  friends  find  in  her  a  likeness  to  her  mother,  or 
her  sisters,  or  to  persons  not  of  her  blood.  The  lover 
sees  no  resemblance  except  to  summer  evenings  and 
diamond  mornings,  to  rainbows  and  the  song  of 
birds. 

Beauty  is  ever  that  divine  thing  the  ancients 
esteemed  it.  It  is,  they  said,  the  flowering  of  virtue. 
Who  can  analyze  the  nameless  charm  which  glances 
from  one  and  another  face  and  form?  We  are 
touched  with  emotions  of  tenderness  and  compla 
cency,  but  we  cannot  find  whereat  this  dainty  emo 
tion,  this  wandering  gleam,  point.  It  is  destroyed 
for  the  imagination  by  any  attempt  to  refer  it  to 
organization.  Nor  does  it  point  to  any  relations  of 
friendship  or  love  that  society  knows  and  has,  but, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  to  a  quite  other  and  unattainable 
sphere,  to  relations  of  transcendent  delicacy  and 
sweetness,  a  true  faerie  land ;  to  what  roses  and  vio 
lets  hint  and  foreshow.  We  cannot  get  at  beauty. 
Its  nature  is  like  opaline  doves'-neck  lustres,  hover 
ing  and  evanescent.  Herein  it  resembles  the  most 
excellent  things,  which  all  have  this  rainbow  charac 
ter,  defying  all  attempts  at  appropriation  and  use. 
What  else  did  Jean  Paul  Richter  signify,  when  he 


134  LOVE. 

said  to  music,  "Away!  away!  them  speakest  to  me 
of  things  which  in  all  my  endless  life  I  have  not 
found  and  shall  not  find."  The  same  fact  may  be 
observed  in  every  work  of  the  plastic  arts.  The 
statue  is  then  beautiful  when  it  begins  to  be  incom 
prehensible,  when  it  is  passing  out  of  criticism  and 
can  no  longer  be  defined  by  compass  and  measuring 
wand,  but  demands  an  active  imagination  to  go  with 
it  and  to  say  what  it  is  in  the  act  of  doing.  The  god 
or  hero  of  the  sculptor  is  always  represented  in  a 
transition  from  that  which  is  representable  to  the 
senses,  to  that  which  is  not.  Then  first  it  ceases  to 
be  a  stone.  The  same  remark  holds  of  painting. 
And  of  poetry  the  success  is  not  attained  when  it 
lulls  and  satisfies,  but  when  it  astonishes  and  fires  us 
with  new  endeavors  after  the  unattainable.  Con 
cerning  it  Landor  inquires  **  whether  it  is  not  to  be 
referred  to  some  purer  state  of  sensation  and  exist 
ence." 

So  must  it  be  with  personal  beauty  which  love 
worships.  Then  first  is  it  charming  and  itself  when 
it  dissatisfies  us  with  any  end ;  when  it  becomes  a 
story  without  an  end ;  when  it  suggests  gleams  and 
visions  and  not  earthly  satisfactions ;  when  it  seems 

too  bright  and  good, 
For  human  nature's  daily  food ; 

when  it  makes  the  beholder  feel  his  unworthiness ; 
when  he  cannot  feel  his  right  to  it,  though  he  were 
Caesar ;  he  cannot  feel  more  right  to  it  than  to  the 
firmament  and  the  splendors  of  a  sunset. 

Hence  arose  the  saying,  "  If  I  love  you,  what  is 


LOVE.  135 

that  to  you? "  We  say  so,  because  we  feel  that  what 
we  love  is  not  in  your  will,  but  above  it.  It  is  the 
radiance  of  you  and  not  you.  It  is  that  which  you 
know  not  in  yourself  and  can  never  know. 

This  agrees  well  with  that  high  philosophy  of 
Beauty  which  the  ancient  writers  delighted  in ;  for 
they  said  that  the  soul  of  man,  embodied  here  on 
earth,  went  roaming  up  and  down  in  quest  of  that 
other  world  of  its  own,  out  of  which  it  came  into 
this,  but  was  soon  stupefied  by  the  light  of  the  nat 
ural  sun,  and  unable  to  see  any  other  objects  than 
those  of  this  world,  which  are  but  shadows  of  real 
things.  Therefore  the  Deity  sends  the  glory  of 
youth  before  the  soul,  that  it  may  avail  itself  of  beau 
tiful  bodies  as  aids  to  its  recollection  of  the  celestial 
good  and  fair ;  and  the  man  beholding  such  a  person 
in  the  female  sex  runs  to  her  and  finds  the  highest 
joy  in  contemplating  the  form,  movement  and  intelli 
gence  of  this  person,  because  it  suggests  to  him  the 
presence  of  that  which  indeed  is  within  the  beauty, 
and  the  cause  of  the  beauty. 

If  however,  from  too  much  conversing  with  mate 
rial  objects,  the  soul  was  gross,  and  misplaced  its 
satisfaction  in  the  body,  it  reaped  nothing  but  sor 
row  ;  body  being  unable  to  fulfil  the  promise  which 
beauty  holds  out ;  but  if,  accepting  the  hint  of  these 
visions  and  suggestions  which  beauty  makes  to  his 
mind,  the  soul  passes  through  the  body  and  falls  to 
admire  strokes  of  character,  and  the  lovers  contem 
plate  one  another  in  their  discourses  and  their  ac 
tions,  then  they  pass  to  the  true  palace  of  beauty, 
more  and  more  inflame  their  love  of  it,  and  by  this 


136  LOVE. 

love  extinguishing  the  base  affection,  as  the  sun  puts 
out  the  fire  by  shining  on  the  hearth,  they  become 
pure  and  hallowed.  By  conversation  with  that  which 
is  in  itself  excellent,  magnanimous,  lowly,  and  just, 
the  lover  comes  to  a  warmer  love  of  these  nobilities, 
and  a  quicker  apprehension  of  them.  Then  he 
passes  from  loving  them  in  one  to  loving  them  in  all, 
and  so  is  the  one  beautiful  soul  only  the  door 
through  which  he  enters  to  the  society  of  all  true 
and  pure  souls.  In  the  particular  society  of  his 
mate  he  attains  a  clearer  sight  of  any  spot,  any  taint 
which  her  beauty  has  contracted  from  this  world, 
and  is  able  to  point  it  out,  and  this  with  mutual  joy 
that  they  are  now  able,  without  offence,  to  indicate 
blemishes  and  hindrances  in  each  other,  and  give  to 
each  all  help  and  comfort  in  curing  the  same.  And, 
beholding  in  many  souls  the  traits  of  the  divine 
beauty,  and  separating  in  each  soul  that  which  is 
divine  from  the  taint  which  it  has  contracted  in  the 
world,  the  lover  ascends  to  the  highest  beauty,  to 
the  love  and  knowledge  of  the  Divinity,  by  steps  on 
this  ladder  of  created  souls. 

Somewhat  like  this  have  the  truly  wise  told  us  of 
love  in  all  ages.  The  doctrine  is  not  old,  nor  is  it 
new.  If  Plato,  Plutarch  and  Apuleius  taught  it,  so 
have  Petrarch,  Angelo  and  Milton.  It  awaits  a  truer 
unfolding  in  opposition  and  rebuke  to  that  subter 
ranean  prudence  which  presides  at  marriages  with 
words  that  take  hold  of  the  upper  world,  whilst  one 
eye  is  eternally  boring  down  into  the  cellar ;  so  that 
its  gravest  discourse  has  ever  a  slight  savor  of  hams 
and  powdering- tubs.  Worst,  when  the  snout  of  this 


LOVE.  137 

sensualism  intrudes  into  the  education  of  young 
women,  and  withers  the  hope  and  affection  of  human 
nature  by  teaching  that  marriage  signifies  nothing  but 
a  housewife's  thrift,  and  that  woman's  life  has  no 
other  aim. 

But  this  dream  of  love,  though  beautiful,  is  only 
one  scene  in  our  play.  In  the  procession  of  the  soul 
from  within  outward,  it  enlarges  its  circles  ever,  like 
the  pebble  thrown  into  the  pond,  or  the  light  pro 
ceeding  from  an  orb.  The  rays  of  the  soul  alight 
first  on  things  nearest,  on  every  utensil  and  toy,  on 
nurses  and  domestics,  on  the  house  and  yard  and 
passengers,  on  the  circle  of  household  acquaintance, 
on  politics  and  geography  and  history.  But  by  the 
necessity  of  our  constitution  things  are  ever  grouping 
themselves  according  to  higher  or  more  interior  laws. 
Neighborhood,  size,  numbers,  habits,  persons,  lose 
by  degrees  their  power  over  us.  Cause  and  effect, 
real  affinities,  the  longing  for  harmony  between  the 
soul  and  the  circumstance,  the  high  progressive, 
idealizing  instinct,  these  predominate  later,  and  ever 
the  step  backward  from  the  higher  to  the  lower  rela 
tions  is  impossible.  Thus  even  love,  which  is  the 
deification  of  persons,  must  become  more  impersonal 
every  day.  Of  this  at  first  it  gives  no  hint.  Little 
think  the  youth  and  maiden  who  are  glancing  at  each 
other  across  crowded  rooms  with  eyes  so  full  of 
mutual  intelligence,  —  of  the  precious  fruit  long  here 
after  to  proceed  from  this  new,  quite  external  stimu 
lus.  The  work  of  vegetation  begins  first  in  the 
irritability  of  the  bark  and  leaf-buds.  From  exchang 
ing  glances,  they  advance  to  acts  of  courtesy,  of  gal- 


138  LOVE. 

lantry,  then  to  fiery  passion,  to  plighting  troth  and 
marriage.  Passion  beholds  its  object  as  a  perfect 
unit.  The  soul  is  wholly  embodied,  and  the  body  is 
wholly  ensouled. 

•Her  pure  and  eloquent  blood 
Spoke  in  her  cheeks,  and  so  distinctly  wrought, 
That  one  might  almost  say  her  body  thought. 

Romeo,  if  dead,  should  be  cut  up  into  little  stars 
to  make  the  heavens  fine.  Life,  with  this  pair,  has 
no  other  aim,  asks  no  more,  than  Juliet,  —  than 
Romeo.  Night,  day,  studies,  talents,  kingdoms, 
religion,  are  all  contained  in  this  form  full  of  soul,  in 
this  soul  which  is  all  form.  The  lovers  delight  in 
endearments,  in  avowals  of  love,  in  comparisons  of 
their  regards.  When  alone,  they  solace  themselves 
with  the  remembered  image  of  the  other.  Does  that 
other  see  the  same  star ;  the  same  melting  cloud, 
read  the  same  book,  feel  the  same  emotion,  that  now 
delight  me?  They  try  and  weigh  their  affection,  and 
adding  up  all  costly  advantages,  friends,  opportuni 
ties,  properties,  exult  in  discovering  that  willingly, 
joyfully,  they  would  give  all  as  a  ransom  for  the  beau 
tiful,  the  beloved  head,  not  one  hair  of  which  shall  be 
harmed.  But  the  lot  of  humanity  is  on  these  children. 
Danger,  sorrow  and  pain  arrive  to  them  as  to  all. 
Love  prays.  It  makes  covenants  with  Eternal  Power 
in  behalf  of  this  dear  mate.  The  union  which  is  thus 
effected  and  which  adds  a  new  value  to  every  atom  in 
nature,  for  it  transmutes  every  thread  throughout  the 
whole  web  of  relation  into  a  golden  ray,  and  bathes 
the  soul  in  a  new  and  sweeter  element,  is  yet  a  tem- 


LOVE.  139 

porary  state.  Not  always  can  flowers,  pearls,  poetry, 
protestations,  nor  even  home  in  another  heart,  con 
tent  the  awful  soul  that  dwells  in  clay.  It  arouses 
itself  at  last  from  these  endearments,  as  toys,  and 
puts  on  the  harness  and  aspires  to  vast  and  universal 
aims.  The  soul  which  is  in  the  soul  of  each,  craving 
for  a  perfect  beatitude,  detects  incongruities,  defects 
and  disproportion  in  the  behavior  of  the  other. 
Hence  arise  surprise,  expostulation  and  pain.  Yet 
that  which  drew  them  to  each  other  was  signs  of 
loveliness,  signs  of  virtue :  and  these  virtues  are 
there,  however  eclipsed.  They  appear  and  reappear 
and  continue  to  attract;  but  the  regard  changes, 
quits  the  sign  and  attaches  to  the  substance.  This 
repairs  the  wounded  affection.  Meantime,  as  life 
wears  on,  it  proves  a  game  of  permutation  and  com 
bination  of  all  possible  positions  of  <he  parties,  to 
extort  all  the  resources  of  each  and  acquaint  each 
with  the  whole  strength  and  weakness  of  the  other. 
For,  it  is  the  nature  and  end  of  this  relation,  that 
they  should  represent  the  human  race  to  each  other. 
All  that  is  in  the  world,  which  is  or  ought  to  be 
known,  is  cunningly  wrought  into  the  texture  of  man, 
of  woman. 

The  person  love  does  to  us  fit, 
Like  manna,  has  the  taste  of  all  in  it. 

The  world  rolls :  the  circumstances  vary  every 
hour.  All  the  angels  that  inhabit  this  temple  of 
the  body  appear  at  the  windows,  and  all  the  gnomes 
and  vices  also.  By  all  the  virtues  they  are  united. 
If  there  be  virtue,  all  the  vices  are  known  as  such ; 


140  LOVE. 

they  confess  and  flee.  Their  once  flaming  regard 
is  sobered  by  time  in  either  breast,  and  losing  in 
violence  what  it  gains  in  extent,  it  becomes  a  thor 
ough  good  understanding.  They  resign  each  other 
without  complaint  to  the  good  offices  which  man 
and  woman  are  severally  appointed  to  discharge  in 
time,  and  exchange  the  passion  which  once  could 
not  lose  sight  of  its  object,  for  a  cheerful,  disengaged 
furtherance,  whether  present  or  absent,  of  each 
other's  designs.  At  last  they  discover  that  all  which 
at  first  drew  them  together,  —  those  once  sacred  feat 
ures,  that  magical  play  of  charms,  —  was  deciduous, 
had  a  prospective  end,  like  the  scaffolding  by  which 
the  house  was  built ;  and  the  purification  of  the  in 
tellect  and  the  heart  from  year  to  year  is  the  real 
marriage,  foreseen  and  prepared  from  the  first, 
and  wholly  above  their  consciousness.  Looking  at 
these  aims  with '  which  two  persons,  a  man  and  a 
woman,  so  variously  and  correlatively  gifted,  are 
shut  up  in  one  house  to  spend  in  the  nuptial  society 
forty  or  fifty  years,  I  do  not  wonder  at  the  emphasis 
with  which  the  heart  prophesies  this  crisis  from  early 
infancy,  at  the  profuse  beauty  with  which  the  instincts 
deck  the  nuptial  bower,  and  nature  and  intellect  and 
art  emulate  each  other  in  the  gifts  and  the  melody 
they  bring  to  the  epithalamium. 

Thus  are  we  put  in  training  for  a  love  which 
knows  not  sex,  nor  person,  nor  partiality,  but  which 
seeketh  virtue  and  wisdom  everywhere,  to  the  end 
of  increasing  virtue  and  wisdom.  We  are  by  nature 
observers,  and  thereby  learners.  That  is  our  per 
manent  state.  But  we  are  often  made  to  feel  that 


LOVE.  141 

our  affections  are  but  tents  of  a  night.  Though 
slowly  and  with  pain,  the  objects  of  the  affections 
change,  as  the  objects  of  thought  do.  There  are 
moments  when  the  affections  rule  and  absorb  the 
man  and  make  his  happiness  dependent  on  a  person 
or  persons.  But  in  health  the  .nind  is  presently 
seen  again,  —  its  overarching  vault,  bright  with 
galaxies  of  immutable  lights,  and  the  warm  loves 
and  fears  that  swept  over  us  as  clouds  must  lose 
their  finite  character  and  blend  with  God,  to  attain 
their  own  perfection.  But  we  need  not  fear  that 
we  can  lose  anything  by  the  progress  of  the  soul. 
The  soul  may  be  trusted  to  the  end.  That  which  is 
so  beautiful  and  attractive  as  these  relations,  must 
be  succeeded  and  supplanted  only  by  what  is  more 
beautiful,  and  so  on  forever. 


ESSAY    VI. 

FRIENDSHIP. 

WE  have  a  great  deal  more  kindness  than  is  ever 
spoken.  Maugre  all  the  selfishness  that  chills  like 
east  winds  the  world,  the  whole  human  family  is 
bathed  with  an  element  of  love  like  a  fine  ether. 
How  many  persons  we  meet  in  houses,  whom  we 
scarcely  speak  to,  whom  yet  we  honor,  and  who 
honor  us!  How  many  we  see  in  the  street,  or  sit 
with  in  church,  whom,  though  silently,  we  warmly 
rejoice  to  be  with  !  Read  the  language  of  these  wan 
dering,  eye-beams.  The  heart  knoweth. 

The  effect  of  the  indulgence  of  this  human  affec 
tion  is  a  certain  cordial  exhilaration.  In  poetry  and 
in  common  speech  the  emotions  of  benevolence  and 
complacency  which  are  felt  towards  others  are  likened 
to  the  material  effects  of  fire ;  so  swift,  or  much  more 
swift,  more  active,  more  cheering,  are  these  fine  in 
ward  irradiations.  From  the  highest  degree  of  pas 
sionate  love  to  the  lowest  degree  of  good  will,  they 
make  the  sweetness  of  life. 

Our   intellectual  and  active  powers  increase  with 

our  affection.     The  scholar  sits  down  to  write,  and 

all  his  years  of  meditation  do  not  furnish  him  with 

one   good   thought   or  happy  expression ;    but  it  is 

142 


FRIENDSHIP.  143 

* 

necessary  to  write  a  letter  to  a  friend,  —  and  forth 
with  troops  of  gentle  thoughts  invest  themselves,  on 
every  hand,  with  chosen  words.  See,  in  any  house 
where  virtue  and  self-respect  abide,  the  palpitation 
which  the  approach  of  a  stranger  causes.  A  com 
mended  stranger  is  expected  and  announced,  and 
an  uneasiness  betwixt  pleasure  and  pain  invades  all 
the  hearts  of  a  household.  His  arrival  almost  brings 
fear  to  the  good  hearts  that  would  welcome  him. 
The  house  is  dusted,  all  things  fly  into  their  places, 
the  old  coat  is  exchanged  for  the  new,  and  they 
must  get  up  a  dinner  if  they  can.  Of  a  commended 
stranger,  only  the  good  report  is  told  by  others, 
only  the  good  and  new  is  heard  by  us.  He  stands 
to  us  for  humanity.  He  is  what  we  wish.  Having 
imagined  and  invested  him,  we  ask  how  we  should 
stand  related  in  conversation  and  action  with  such  a 
man,  and  are  uneasy  with  fear.  The  same  idea 
exalts  conversation  with  him.  We  talk  better  than 
we  are  wont.  We  have  the  nimblest  fancy,  a  richer 
memory,  and  our  dumb  devil  has  taken  leave  for 
the  time.  For  long  hours  we  can  continue  a  series 
of  sincere,  graceful,  rich  communications,  drawn 
from  the  oldest,  secretest  experience,  so  that  they 
who  sit  by,  of  our  own  kinsfolk  and  acquaintance, 
shall  feel  a  lively  surprise  at  our  unusual  powers. 
But  as  soon  as  the  stranger  begins  to  intrude  his 
partialities,  his  definitions,  his  defects  into  the  con 
versation,  it  is  all  over.  He  has  heard  the  first,  the 
last  and  best  he  will  ever  hear  from  us.  He  is  no 
stranger  now.  Vulgarity,  ignorance,  misapprehen 
sion  are  old  acquaintances.  Now,  when  he  comes, 


144  FRIENDSHIP. 

he  may  get  the  order,  the  dress  and  the  dinner,  — 
but  the  throbbing  of  the  heart  and  the  communica 
tions  of  the  soul,  no  more. 

Pleasant  are  these  jets  of  affection  which  make 
a  young  world  for  me  again.  Delicious  is  a  just 
and  firm  encounter  of  two,  in  a  thought,  in  a  feel 
ing-.  How  beautiful,  on  their  approach  to  this  beat 
ing  heart,  the  steps  and  forms  of  the  gifted  and 
the  true !  The  moment  we  indulge  our  affections, 
the  earth  is  metamorphosed :  there  is  no  winter 
and  no  night:  all  tragedies,  all  ennuis  vanish,  —  all 
duties  even;  nothing  fills  the  proceeding  eternity 
but  the  forms  all  radiant  of  beloved  persons.  Let 
the  soul  be  assured  that  somewhere  in  the  universe 
it  should  rejoin  its  friend,  and  it  would  be  content 
and  cheerful  alone  for  a  thousand  years. 

I  awoke  this  morning  with  devout  thanksgiving 
for  my  friends,  the  old  and  the  new.  Shall  I  not 
call  God  the  Beautiful,  who  daily  showeth  himself 
so  to  me  in  his  gifts?  I  chide  society,  I  embrace 
solitude,  and  yet  I  am  not  so  ungrateful  as  not  to 
see  the  wise,  the  lovely  and  the  noble-minded,  as 
from  time  to  time  they  pass  my  gate.  Who  hears 
me,  who  understands  me,  becomes  mine, — a  pos 
session  for  all  time.  '  Nor  is  nature  so  poor  but  she 
gives  me  this  joy  several  times,  and  thus  we  weave 
social  threads  of  our  own,  a  new  web  of  relations ; 
and,  as  many  thoughts  in  succession  substantiate 
themselves,  we  shall  by-and-by  stand  in  a  new  world 
of  our  own  creation,  and  no  longer  strangers  and 
pilgrims  in  a  traditionary  globe.  My  friends  have 
come  to  me  unsought.  The  great  God  gave  them 


FRIENDSHIP.  145 

to  me.  By  oldest  right,  by  the  divine  affinity  of 
virtue  with  itself,  I  find  them,  or  rather  not  I,  but 
the  Deity  in  me  and  in  them,  both  deride  and  can 
cel  the  thick  walls  of  individual  character,  relation, 
age,  sex,  circumstance,  at  which  he  usually  connives, 
and  now  makes  many  one.  High  thanks  I  owe 
you,  excellent  lovers,  who  carry  out  the  world  for 
me  to  new  and  noble  depths,  and  enlarge  the  mean 
ing  of  ali  my  thoughts.  These  are  not  stark  and 
stiffened  persons,  but  the  new-born  poetry  of  God, — 
poetry  without  stop,  —  hymn,  ode  and  epic,  poetry 
still  flowing  and  not  yet  caked  in  dead  books  with 
annotation  and  grammar,  but  Apollo  and  the  Muses 
chanting  still.  Will  these  too  separate  themselves 
from  me  again,  or  some  of  them?  I  know  not,  but 
I  fear  it  not;  for  my  relation  to  them  is  so  pure 
that  we  hold  by  simple  affinity,  and  the  Genius  of 
my  life  being  thus  social,  the  same  affinity  will 
exert  its  energy  on  whomsoever  is  as  noble  as  these 
men  and  women,  wherever  I  may  be. 

I  confess  to  an  extreme  tenderness  of  nature  on 
this  point.  It  is  almost  dangerous  to  me  to  "  crush 
the  sweet  poison  of  misused  wine  "  of  the  affections. 
A  new  person  is  to  me  always  a  great  event  and 
hinders  me  from  sleep.  I  have  had  such  fine  fancies 
lately  about  two  or  three  persons  which  have  given 
me  delicious  hours ;  but  the  joy  ends  in  the  day ;  it 
yields  no  fruit.  Thought  is  not  born  of  it ;  my  action 
is  very  little  modified.  I  must  feel  pride  in  my  friend's 
accomplishments  as  if  they  were  mine,  —  wild,  deli 
cate,  throbbing  property  in  his  virtues.  I  feel  as 
warmly  when  he  is  praised,  as  the  lover  when  he 


146  FRIENDSHIP. 

hears  applause  of  his  engaged  maiden.  We  oven 
estimate  the  conscience  of  our  friend.  His  good 
ness  seems  better  than  our  goodness,  his  nature 
finer,  his  temptations  less.  Every  thing  that  is  his, 
his  name,  his  form,  his  dress,  books  and  instru 
ments,  fancy  enhances.  Our  own  thought  sounds 
new  and  larger  from  his  mouth. 

Yet  the  systole  and  diastole  of  the  heart  are  not 
without  their  analogy  in  the  ebb  and  flow  of  love. 
Friendship,  like  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  is  too 
good  to  be  believed.  The  lover,  beholding  his 
maiden,  half  knows  that  she  is  not  verily  that 
which  he  worships ;  and  in  the  golden  hour  of 
friendship  we  are  surprised  with  shades  of  sus 
picion  and  unbelief.  We  doubt  that  we  bestow  on 
our  hero  the  virtues  in  which  he  shines,  and  after 
wards  worship  the  form  to  which  we  have  ascribed 
this  divine  inhabitation.  In  strictness,  the  soul  does 
not  respect  men  as  it  respects  itself.  In  strict  sci 
ence  all  persons  underlie  the  same  condition  of  an 
infinite  remoteness.  Shall  we  fear  to  cool  our  love 
by  facing  the  fact,  by  mining  for  the  metaphysical 
foundation  of  this  Elysian  temple?  Shall  I  not  be 
as  real  as  the  things  I  see?  If  I  am,  I  shall  not 
fear  to  know  them  for  what  they  are.  Their  essence 
is  not  less  beautiful  than  their  appearance,  though 
it  needs  finer  organs  for  its  apprehension.  The 
root  of  the  plant  is  not  unsightly  to  science,  though 
for  chaplets  and  festoons  we  cut  the  stem  short. 
And  I  must  hazard  the  production  of  the  bald 
fact  amidst  these  pleasing  reveries,  though  it  should 
prove  an  Egyptian  skull  at  our  banquet.  A  man  who 


FRIENDSHIP.  147 

stands  united  with  his  thought  conceives  magnifi 
cently  of  himself.  He  is  conscious  of  a  universal 
success,  even  though  bought  by  uniform  particular 
failures.  No  advantages,  no  powers,  no  gold  or 
force,  can  be  any  match  for  him.  I  cannot  choose 
but  rely  on  my  own  poverty  more  than  on  your 
wealth.  I  cannot  make  your  consciousness  tanta 
mount  to  mine.  Only  the  star  dazzles ;  the  planet 
has  a  faint,  moon-like  ray.  I  hear  what  you  say 
of  the  admirable  parts  and  tried  temper  of  the  party 
you  praise,  but  I  see  well  that,  for  all  his  purple 
cloaks,  I  shall  not  like  him,  unless  he  is  at  last 
a  poor  Greek  like  me.  I  cannot  deny  it,  O  friend, 
that  the  vast  shadow  of  the  Phenomenal  includes 
thee  also  in  its  pied  and  painted  immensity,  —  thee 
also,  compared  with  whom  all  else  is  shadow.  Thou 
art  not  Being,  as  Truth  is,  as  Justice  is,  —  thou  art 
not  my  soul,  but  a  picture  and  effigy  of  that.  Thou 
hast  come  to  me  lately,  and  already  thou  art  seizing 
thy  hat  and  cloak.  Is  it  not  that  the  soul  puts 
forth  friends  as  the  tree  puts  forth  leaves,  and 
presently,  by  the  germination  of  new  buds,  extrudes 
the  old  leaf?  The  law  of  nature  is  alternation  for- 
evermore.  Each  electrical  state  superinduces  the 
opposite.  The  soul  environs  itself  with  friends  that 
it  may  enter  into  a  grander  self-acquaintance  or  soli 
tude  ;  and  it  goes  alone  for  a  season  that  it  may 
exalt  its  conversation  or  society.  This  method  be 
trays  itself  along  the  whole  history  of  our  personal 
relations,  the  instinct  of  affection  revives  the  hope 
of  union  with  our  mates,  and  the  returning  sense  of 
insulation  recalls  us  from  the  chase.  Thus  every 


14^  FRIENDSHIP. 

man  passes  his  life  in  the  search  after  friendship, 
and  if  he  should  record  his  true  sentiment,  he  might 
write  a  letter  like  this  to  each  new  candidate  for  his 
love. 

DEAR  FRIEND  :  If  I  was  sure  of  thee,  sure  of  thy 
capacity,  sure  to  match  my  mood  with  thine,  I  should 
never  think  again  of  trifles  in  relation  to  thy  com 
ings  and  goings.  I  am  not  very  wise  :  my  moods  are 
quite  attainable  :  and  I  respect  thy  genius  :  it  is  to  me 
as  yet  unfathomed ;  yet  dare  I  not  presume  in  thee  a 
perfect  intelligence  of  me,  and  so  thou  art  to  me  a 
delicious  torment.  Thine  ever,  or  never. 

Yet  these  uneasy  pleasures  and  fine  pains  are  for 
curiosity  and  not  for  life.  They  are  not  to  be  in 
dulged.  This  is  to  weave  cobweb,  and  not  cloth. 
Our  friendships  hurry  to  short  and  poor  conclusions, 
because  we  have  made  them  a  texture  of  wine  and 
dreams,  instead  of  the  tough  fibre  of  the  human  heart. 
The  laws  of  friendship  are  great,  austere  and  eternal, 
of  one  web  with  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  morals. 
But  we  have  aimed  at  a  swift  and  petty  benefit,  to 
suck  a  sudden  sweetness.  We  snatch  at  the  slowest 
fruit  in  the  whole  garden  of  God,  which  many  sum 
mers  and  many  winters  must  ripen.  We  seek  our  friend 
not  sacredly,  but  with  an  adulterate  passion  which 
would  appropriate  him  to  ourselves.  In  vain.  We 
are  armed  all  over  with  subtle  antagonisms,  which, 
as  soon  as  we  meet,  begin  to  play,  and  translate  all 
poetry  into  stale  prose.  Almost  all  people  descend 
to  meet.  All  association  must  be  a  compromise,  and, 
what  is  worst,  the  very  flower  and  aroma  of  the 


FRIENDSHIP.  149 

flower  of  each  of  the  beautiful  natures  disappears  as 
they  approach  each  other.  What  a  perpetual  disap 
pointment  is  actual  society,  even  of  the  virtuous  and 
gifted !  After  interviews  have  been  compassed  with 
long  foresight  we  must  be  tormented  presently  by 
baffled  blows,  by  sudden,  unseasonable  apathies,  by 
epilepsies  of  wit  and  of  animal  spirits,  in  the  hey-dey 
of  friendship  and  thought.  Our  faculties  do  not  play 
us  true,  and  both  parties  are  relieved  by  solitude. 

I  ought  to  be  equal  to  every  relation.  It  makes  no 
difference  how  many  friends  I  have  and  what  content 
I  can  find  in  conversing  with  each,  if  there  be  one  to 
whom  I  am  not  equal.  If  I  have  shrunk  unequal 
from  one  contest,  instantly  the  joy  I  find  in  all  the 
rest  becomes  mean  and  cowardly.  I  should  hate 
myself,  if  then  I  made  my  other  friends  my  asylum. 

The  valiant  warrior  famoused  for  fight, 
After  a  hundred  victories,  once  foiled, 
Is  from  the  book  of  honor  razed  quite 
And  all  the  rest  forgot  for  which  he  toiled. 

Our  impatience  is  thus  sharply  rebuked.  Bashful- 
ness  and  apathy  are  a  tough  husk  in  which  a  delicate 
organization  is  protected  from  premature  ripening. 
It  would  be  lost  if  it  knew  itself  before  any  of  the 
best  souls  were  yet  ripe  enough  to  know  and  own  it. 
Respect  the  naturlangsamkeit  which  hardens  the 
ruby  in  a  million  years,  and  works  in  duration  in 
which  Alps  and  Andes  come  and  go  as  rainbows. 
The  good  spirit  of  our  life  has  no  heaven  which  is 
the  price  of  rashness.  Love,  which  is  the  essence  of 
God,  is  not  for  levity,  but  for  the  total  worth  of  man. 


150  FRIENDSHIP. 

Let  us  not  have  this  childish  luxury  in  our  regards ; 
but  the  austerest  worth ;  let  us  approach  our  friend 
with  an  audacious  trust  in  the  truth  of  his  heart,  in 
the  breadth,  impossible  to  be  overturned,  of  his  foun 
dations. 

The  attractions  of  this  subject  are  not  to  be  re 
sisted,  and  I  leave,  for  the  time,  all  account  of  sub 
ordinate  social  benefit,  to  speak  of  that  select  and 
sacred  relation  which  is  a  kind  of  absolute,  and  which 
even  leaves  the  language  of  love  suspicious  and  com 
mon,  so  much  is  this  purer,  and  nothing  is  so  much 
divine. 

I  do  not  wish  to  treat  friendships  daintily,  but  with 
roughest  courage.  When  they  are  real,  they  are  not 
glass  threads  or  frost-work,  but  the  solidest  thing  we 
know.  For  now,  after  so  many  ages  of  experience, 
what  do  we  know  of  nature  or  of  ourselves  ?  Not 
one  step  has  man  taken  toward  the  solution  of  the 
problem  of  his  destiny.  In  one  condemnation  of 
folly  stand  the  whole  universe  of  men.  But  the  sweet 
sincerity  of  joy  and  peace  which  I  draw  from  this 
alliance  with  my  brother's  soul  is  the  nut  itself 
whereof  all  nature  and  all  thought  is  but  the  husk  and 
shell.  Happy  is  the  house  that  shelters  a  friend !  It 
might  well  be  built,  like  a  festal  bower  or  arch,  to  en 
tertain  him  a  single  day.  Happier,  if  he  know  the 
solemnity  of  that  relation  and  honor  its  law!  It  is 
no  idle  bond,  no  holiday  engagement.  He  who 
offers  himself  a  candidate  for  that  covenant  comes 
up,  like  an  Olympian,  to  the  great  games  where  the 
first-born  of  the  world  are  the  competitors.  He  pro 
poses  himself  for  contest  where  Time,  Want,  Danger, 


FRIENDSHIP.  s      151 

are  in  the  lists,  and  he  alone  is  victor  who  has  truth 
enough  in  his  constitution  to  perserve  the  delicacy  of 
his  beauty  from  the  wear  and  tear  of  all  these.  The 
gifts  of  fortune  may  be  present  or  absent,  but  all  the 
hap  in  that  contest  depends  on  intrinsic  nobleness 
and  the  contempt  of  trifles.  There  are  two  elements 
that  go  to  the  composition  of  friendship,  each  so  sov 
ereign  that  I  can  detect  no  superiority  in  either,  no 
reason  why  either  should  be  first  named.  One  is 
Truth.  A  friend  is  a  person  with  whom  I  may  be 
sincere.  Before  him  I  may  think  aloud.  I  am  ar 
rived  at  last  in  the  presence  of  a  man  so  real  and 
equal  that  I  may  drop  even  those  most  undermost 
garments  of  dissimulation,  courtesy,  and  second 
thought,  which  men  never  put  off,  and  may  deal  with 
him  with  the  simplicity  and  wholeness  with  which 
one  chemical  atom  meets  another.  Sincerity  is  the 
luxury  allowed,  like  diadems  and  authority,  only  to 
the  highest  rank,  that  being  permitted  to  speak  truth, 
as  having  none  above  it  to  court  or  conform  unto. 
Every  man  alone  is  sincere.  At  the  entrance  of  a 
second  person,  hypocrisy  begins.  We  parry  and  fend 
the  approach  of  our  fellow  man  by  compliments,  by 
gossip,  by  amusements,  by  aifairs.  We  cover  up 
our  thought  from  him  under  a  hundred  folds.  I  knew  a 
man  who  under  a  certain  religious  frenzy  cast  off  this 
drapery,  and  omitting  all  compliment  and  common 
place,  spoke  to  the  conscience  of  every  person  he  en 
countered,  and  that  with  great  insight  and  beauty. 
At  first  he  was  resisted,  and  all  men  agreed  he  was 
mad.  But  persisting  as  indeed  he  could  not  help 
doing  for  some  time  in  this  course,  he  attained  to  the 


152  FRIENDSHIP. 

advantage  of  bringing  every  man  of  his  acquaintance 
into  true  relations  with  him.  No  man  would  think 
of  speaking  falsely  with  him,  or  of  putting  him  off 
with  any  chat  of  markets  or  reading-rooms.  But 
every  man  was  constrained  by  so  much  sincerity  to 
face  him,  and  what  love  of  nature,  what  poetry,  what 
symbol  of  truth  he  had,  he  did  certainly  show  him. 
But  to  most  of  us  society  shows  not  its  face  and  eye, 
but  its  side  and  its  back.  To  stand  in  true  relations 
with  men  in  a  false  age  is  worth  a  fit  of  insanity,  is  it 
not?  We  can  seldom  go  erect.  Almost  every  man 
we  meet  requires  some  civility,  requires  to  be 
humored ;  —  he  has  some  fame,  some  talent,  some 
whim  of  religion  or  philanthropy  in  his  head  that  is 
not  to  be  questioned,  and  which  spoils  all  conversa 
tion  with  him.  But  a  friend  is  a  sane  man  who  exer 
cises  not  my  ingenuity,  but  me.  My  friend  gives  me 
entertainment  without  requiring  me  to  stoop, or  to  lisp, 
or  to  mask  myself.  A  friend  therefore  is  a  sort  of  para 
dox  in  nature.  I  who  alone  am,  I  who  see  nothing  in 
nature  whose  existence  I  can  affirm  with  equal  evi 
dence  to  my  own,  behold  now  the  semblance  of  my 
being,  in  all  its  height,  variety  and  curiosity,  reit 
erated  in  a  foreign  form  ;  so  that  a  friend  may  well  be 
reckoned  the  masterpiece  of  nature. 

The  other  element  of  friendship  is  Tenderness. 
We  are  holden  to  men  by  every  sort  of  tie,  by  blood, 
by  pride,  by  fear,  by  hope,  by  lucre,  by  lust,  by  hate, 
by  admiration,  by  every  circumstance  and  badge  and 
trifle,  but  we  can  scarce  believe  that  so  much  char 
acter  can  subsist  in  another  as  to  draw  us  by  love. 
Can  another  be  so  blessed  and  we  so  pure  that  we 


FRIENDSHIP.  153 

can  offer  him  tenderness?  When  a  man  becomes 
dear  to  me  I  have  touched  the  goal  of  fortune.  I 
find  very  little  written  directly  to  the  heart  of  this 
matter  in  books.  And  yet  I  have  one  text  which  I 
cannot  choose  but  remember.  My  author  says, 
"  I  offer  myself  faintly  and  bluntly  to  those  whose  I 
effectually  am,  and  tender  myself  least  to  him  to 
whom  I  am  the  most  devoted."  I  wish  that  friend 
ship  should  have  feet,  as  well  as  eyes  and  eloquence. 
It  must  plant  itself  on  the  ground,  before  it  walks 
over  the  moon.  I  wish  it  to  be  a  little  of  a  citizen, 
before  it  is  quite  a  cherub.  We  chide  the  citizen 
because  he  makes  love  a  commodity.  It  is  an  ex 
change  of  gifts,  of  useful  loans ;  it  is  good  neighbor 
hood  ;  it  watches  with  the  sick ;  it  holds  the  pall  at 
the  funeral ;  and  quite  loses  sight  of  the  delicacies 
and  nobility  of  the  relation.  But  though  we  cannot 
find  the  god  under  this  disguise  of  a  sutler,  yet  on 
the  other  hand  we  cannot  forgive  the  poet  if  he 
spins  his  thread  too  fine  and  does  not  substantiate 
his  romance  by  the  municipal  virtues  of  justice, 
punctuality,  fidelity  and  pity.  I  hate  the  prostitu 
tion  of  the  name  of  friendship  to  signify  modish  and 
worldly  alliances.  I  much  prefer  the  company  of 
ploughboys  and  tin-pedlars  to  the  silken  and  per 
fumed  amity  which  only  celebrates  its  days  of  en 
counter  by  a  frivolous  display,  by  rides  in  a  curricle 
and  dinners  at  the  best  taverns.  The  end  of  friend 
ship  is  a  commerce  the  most  strict  and  homely  that 
can  be  joined ;  more  strict  than  any  of  which  we 
have  experience.  It  is  for  aid  and  comfort  through 
all  the  relations  and  passages  of  life  and  death.  It 


154  FRIENDSHIP. 

is  fit  for  serene  days  and  graceful  gifts  and  country 
rambles,  but  also  for  rough  roads  and  hard  fare,  ship 
wreck,  poverty  and  persecution.  It  keeps  company 
with  the  sallies  of  the  wit  and  the  trances  of  relig 
ion.  We  are  to  dignify  to  each  other  the  daily 
needs  and  offices  of  man's  life,  and  embellish  it  by 
courage,  wisdom  and  unity.  It  should  never  fall 
into  something  usual  and  settled,  but  should  be  alert 
and  inventive  and  add  rhyme  and  reason  to  what 
was  drudgery. 

For  perfect  friendship  may  be  said  to  require 
natures  so  rare  and  costly,  so  well  tempered  each  and 
so  happily  adapted,  and  withal  so  circumstanced 
(for  even  in  that  particular,  a  poet  says,  love  de 
mands  that  the  parties  be  altogether  paired),  that 
very  seldom  can  its  satisfaction  be  realized.  It  can 
not  subsist  in  its  perfection,  say  some  of  those  who 
are  learned  in  this  warm  lore  of  the  heart,  betwixt 
more  than  two.  I  am  not  quite  so  strict  in  my 
terms,  perhaps  because  I  have  never  known  so  high 
a  fellowship  as  others.  I  please  my  imagination 
more  with  a  circle  of  godlike  men  and  women  vari 
ously  related  to  each  other  and  between  whom  sub 
sists  a  lofty  intelligence.  But  I  find  this  law  of 
one  to  one  peremptory  for  conversation,  which  is  the 
practice  and  consummation  of  friendship.  Do  not 
mix  waters  too  much.  The  best  mix  as  ill  as  good 
and  bad.  You  shall  have  very  useful  and  cheering 
discourse  at  several  times  with  two  several  men,  but 
let  all  three  of  you  come  together  and  you  shall  not 
have  one  new  and  hearty  word.  Two  may  talk  and 
one  may  hear,  but  three  cannot  take  part  in  a  con- 


FRIENDSHIP.  155 

versation  of  the  most  sincere  and  searching  sort. 
In  good  company  there  is  never  such  discourse  be 
tween  two,  across  the  table,  as  takes  place  when  you 
leave  them  alone.  In  good  company  the  individuals 
at  once  merge  their  egotism  into  a  social  soul  exactly 
coextensive  with  the  several  consciousnesses  there 
present.  No  partialities  of  friend  to  friend,  no 
fondnesses  of  brother  to  sister,  of  wife  to  husband, 
are  there  pertinent,  but  quite  otherwise.  Only  he 
may  then  speak  who  can  sail  on  the  common  thought 
of  the  party,  and  not  poorly  limited  to  his  own. 
Now  this  convention,  which  good  sense  demands, 
destroys  the  high  freedom  of  great  conversation, 
which  requires  an  absolute  running  of  two  souls 
into  one. 

No  two  men  but  being  left  alone  with  each  other 
enter  into  simpler  relations.  Yet  it  is  affinity  that  de 
termines  which  two  shall  converse.  Unrelated  men 
give  little  joy  to  each  other ;  will  never  suspect  the 
latent  powers  of  each.  We  talk  sometimes  of  a 
great  talent  for  conversation,  as  if  it  were  a  per 
manent  property  in  some  individuals.  Conversation 
is  an  evanescent  relation,  —  no  more.  A  man  is  re 
puted  to  have  thought  and  eloquence ;  he  cannot, 
for  all  that,  say  a  word  to  his  cousin  or  his  uncle. 
They  accuse  his  silence  with  as  much  reason  as  they 
would  blame  the  insignificance  of  a  dial  in  the  shade. 
In  the  sun  it  will  mark  the  hour.  Among  those  who 
enjoy  his  thought  he  will  regain  his  tongue. 

Friendship  requires  that  rare  mean  betwixt  like 
ness  and  unlikeness  that  piques  each  with  the  pres 
ence  of  power  and  of  consent  in  the  other  party.  Let 


156  FRIENDSHIP. 

me  be  alone  to  the  end  of  the  world,  rather  than  that 
my  friend  should  overstep,  by  a  word  or  a  look,  his 
real  sympathy.  I  am  equally  baulked  by  antagonism 
and  by  compliance.  Let  him  not  cease  an  instant  to 
be  himself.  The  only  joy  I  have  in  his  being  mine, 
is  that  the  not  mine  is  mine.  It  turns  the  stomach, 
it  blots  the  daylight;  where  I  looked  for  a  manly 
furtherance  or  at  least  a  manly  resistance,  to  find  a 
mush  of  concession.  Better  be  a  nettle  in  the  side 
of  your  friend  than  his  echo.  The  condition  which 
high  friendship  demands  is  ability  to  do  without  it. 
To  be  capable  that  high  office  requires  great  and 
sublime  parts.  There  must  be  very  two,  before  there 
can  be  very  one.  Let  it  be  an  alliance  of  two  large, 
formidable  natures,  mutually  beheld,  mutually  feared, 
before  yet  they  recognise  the  deep  identity  which, 
beneath  these  disparities,  unites  them. 

He  only  is  fit  for  this  society  who  is  magnanimous. 
He  must  be  so  to  know  its  law.  He  must  be  one 
who  is  sure  that  greatness  and  goodness  are  always 
economy.  He  must  be  one  who  is  not  swift  to  inter 
meddle  with  his  fortunes.  Let  him  not  dare  to  in 
termeddle  with  this.  Leave  to  the  diamond  its  ages 
to  grow,  nor  expect  to  accelerate  the  births  of  the 
eternal.  Friendship  demands  a  religious  treatment. 
We  must  not  be  wilful,  we  must  not  provide.  We 
talk  of  choosing  our  friends,  but  friends  are  self- 
elected.  Reverence  is  a  great  part  of  it.  Treat  your 
friend  as  a  spectacle.  Of  course  if  he  be  a  man  he 
has  merits  that  are  not  yours,  and  that  you  cannot 
honor  if  you  must  needs  hold  him  close  to  your  per 
son.  Stand  aside.  Give  those  merits  room.  Let 


FRIENDSHIP.  157 

them  mount  and  expand.  Be  not  so  much  his  friend 
that  you  can  never  know  his  peculiar  energies,  like 
fond  mammas  who  shut  up  their  boy  in  the  house 
until  he  is  almost  grown  a  girl.  Are  you  the  friend 
of  your  friend's  buttons,  or  of  his  thought?  To  a 
great  heart  he  will  still  be  a  stranger  in  a  thousand 
particulars,  that  he  may  come  near  in  the  holiest 
ground.  Leave  it  to  girls  and  boys  to  regard  a  friend 
as  property,  and  to  suck  a  short  and  all-confounding 
pleasure,  instead  of  the  pure  nectar  of  God. 

Let  us  buy  our  entrance  to  this  guild  by  a  long 
probation.  Why  should  we  desecrate  noble  and 
beautiful  souls  by  intruding  on  them?  Why  insist  on 
rash  personal  relations  with  your  friend?  Why  go 
to  his  house,  or  know  his  mother  and  brother  and 
sisters?  Why  be  visited  by  him  at  your  own?  Are 
these  things  material  to  our  covenant?  Leave  this 
touching  and  clawing.  Let  him  be  to  me  a  spirit. 
A  message,  a  thought,  a  sincerity,  a  glance  from  him, 
I  want,  but  not  news,  nor  pottage.  I  can  get  politics 
and  chat  and  neighborly  conveniences  from  cheaper 
companions.  Should  not  the  society  of  my  friend  be 
to  me  poetic,  pure,  universal  and  great  as  nature  itself  ? 
Ought  I  to  feel  that  our  tie  is  profane  in  comparison 
with  yonder  bar  of  cloud  that  sleeps  on  the  horizon, 
or  that  clump  of  waving  grass  that  divides  the  brook? 
Let  us  not  vilify,  but  raise  it  to  that  standard.  That 
great  defying  eye,  that  scornful  beauty  of  his  mien 
and  action,  do  not  pique  yourself  on  reducing,  but 
rather  fortify  and  enhance.  Worship  his  superiori 
ties.  Wish  him  not  less  by  a  thought,  but  hoard 
and  tell  them  all.  Guard  him  as  thy  great  counter- 


158  FRIENDSHIP. 

part ;  have  a  princedom  to  thy  friend.  Let  him  be 
to  thee  forever  a  sort  of  beautiful  enemy,  untamable, 
devoutly  revered,  and  not  a  trivial  conveniency  to  be 
soon  outgrown  and  cast  aside.  The  hues  of  the 
opal,  the  light  of  the  diamond,  are  not  to  be  seen  if 
the  eye  is  too  near.  To  my  friend  I  write  a  letter 
and  from  him  I  receive  a  letter.  That  seems  to  you 
a  little.  Me  it  suffices.  It  is  a  spiritual  gift,  worthy 
of  him  to  give  and  of  me  to  receive.  It  profanes 
nobody.  In  these  warm  lines  the  heart  will  trust  it 
self,  as  it  will  not  to  the  tongue,  and  pour  out  the 
prophecy  of  a  godlier  existence  than  all  the  annals  of 
heroism  have  yet  made  good. 

Respect  so  far  the  holy  laws  of  this  fellowship  as 
not  to  prejudice  its  perfect  flower  by  your  impatience 
for  its  opening.  We  must  be  our  own  before  we  can 
be  another's.  There  is  at  least  this  satisfaction  in  . 
crime,  according  to  the  Latin  proverb ;  you  can 
speak  to  your  accomplice  on  even  terms.  Crimen 
quos  inquinat,  (squat.  To  those  whom  we  admire 
and  love,  at  first  we  cannot.  Yet  the  least  defect  of 
self-possession  vitiates,  in  my  judgment,  the  entire 
relation.  There  can  never  be  deep  peace  between  two 
spirits,  never  mutual  respect,  until  in  their  dialogue 
each  stands  for  the  whole  world. 

What  is  so  great  as  friendship,  let  us  carry  with 
what  grandeur  of  spirit  we  can.  Let  us  be  silent,  — 
so  we  may  hear  the  whisper  of  the  gods.  Let  us  not 
interfere.  Who  set  you  to  cast  about  what  you 
should  say  to  the  select  souls,  or  to  say  anything  to 
such  ?  No  matter  how  ingenious,  no  matter  how 
graceful  and  bland.  There  are  innumerable  degrees 


FRIENDSHIP.  159 

of  folly  and  wisdom,  and  for  you  to  say  aught  is  to 
be  frivolous.  Wait,  and  thy  soul  shall  speak.  Wait 
until  the  necessary  and  everlasting  overpowers  you, 
until  day  and  night  avail  themselves  of  your  lips. 
The  only  money  of  God  is  God.  He  pays  never 
with  any  thing  less,  or  any  thing  else.  The  only 
reward  of  virtue  is  virtue :  the  only  way  to  have  a 
friend  is  to  be  one.  You  shall  not  come  nearer  a 
man  by  getting  into  his  house.  If  unlike,  his  soul 
only  flees  the  faster  from  you,  and  you  shall  catch 
never  a  true  glance  of  his  eye.  We  see  the  noble 
afar  off  and  they  repel  us ;  why  should  we  intrude  ? 
Late,  —  very  late,  —  we  perceive  that  no  arrange 
ments,  no  introductions,  no  consuetudes  or  habits  of 
society  would  be  of  any  avail  to  establish  us  in  such 
relations  with  them  as  we  desire,  —  but  solely  the 
uprise  of  nature  in  us  to  the  same  degree  it  is  in 
them :  then  shall  we  meet  as  water  with  water :  and 
if  we  should  not  meet  them  then,  we  shall  not  want 
them,  for  we  are  already  they.  In  the  last  analysis, 
love  is  only  the  reflection  of  a  man's  own  worthiness 
from  other  men.  Men  have  sometimes  exchanged 
names  with  their  friends,  as  if  they  would  signify  that 
in  their  friend  each  loved  his  own  soul. 

The  higher  the  style  we  demand  of  friendship,  of 
course  the  less  easy  to  establish  it  with  flesh  and 
blood.  We  walk  alone  in  the  world.  Friends  such 
as  we  desire  are  dreams  and  fables.  But  a  sublime 
hope  cheers  ever  the  faithful  heart,  that  elsewhere, 
in  other  regions  of  the  universal  power,  souls  are 
now  acting,  enduring  and  daring,  which  can  love  us 
and  which  we  can  love.  We  may  congratulate  our- 


160  FRIENDSHIP. 

selves  that  the  period  of  nonage,  of  follies,  of  blun 
ders  and  of  shame,  is  passed  in  solitude,  and  when 
we  are  finished  men  we  shall  grasp  heroic  hands  in 
heroic  hands.  Only  be  admonished  by  what  you 
already  see,  not  to  strike  leagues  of  friendship  with 
cheap  persons,  where  no  friendship  can  be.  Our 
impatience  betrays  us  into  rash  and  foolish  alliances 
which  no  God  attends.  By  persisting  in  your  path, 
though  you  forfeit  the  little  you  gain  the  great.  You 
become  pronounced.  You  demonstrate  yourself,  so 
as  to  put  yourself  out  of  the  reach  of  false  relations, 
and  you  draw  to  you  the  first-born  of  the  world,  — 
those  rare  pilgrims  whereof  only  one  or  two  wander 
in  nature  at  once,  and  before  whom  the  vulgar  great 
show  as  spectres  and  shadows  merely. 

It  is  foolish  to  be  afraid  of  making  our  ties  too 
spiritual,  as  if  so  we  could  lose  any  genuine  love. 
Whatever  correction  of  our  popular  views  we  make 
from  insight,  nature  will  be  sure  to  bear  us  out  in, 
and  though  it  seem  to  rob  us  of  some  joy,  will  repay 
us  with  a  greater.  Let  us  feel  if  we  will  the  absolute 
insulation  of  man.  We  are  sure  that  we  have  all  in 
us.  We  go  to  Europe,  or  we  pursue  persons,  or  we 
read  books,  in  the  instinctive  faith  that  these  will 
call  it  out  and  reveal  us  to  ourselves.  Beggars  all. 
The  persons  are  such  as  we ;  the  Europe,  an  old 
faded  garment  of  dead  persons ;  the  books,  their 
ghosts.  Let  us  drop  this  idolatry.  Let  us  give  over 
this  mendicancy.  Let  us  even  bid  our  dearest  friends 
farewell,  and  defy  them,  saying  '  Who  are  you?  Un 
hand  me  :  I  will  be  dependent  no  more.''  Ah!  seest 
thou  not,  O  brother,  that  thus  we  part  only  to  meet 


FRIENDSHIP.  161 

again  on  a  higher  platform,  and  only  be  more  each 
other's  because  we  are  more  our  own?  A  friend  is 
Janus-faced :  he  looks  to  the  past  and  the  future.  He 
is  the  child  of  all  my  foregoing  hours,  the  prophet  of 
those  to  come.  He  is  the  harbinger  of  a  greater 
friend.  It  is  the  property  of  the  divine  to  be  repro 
ductive. 

I  do  then  with  my  friends  as  I  do  with  my  books. 
I  would  have  them  where  I  can  find  them,  but  I 
seldom  use  them.  We  must  have  society  on  our  own 
terms,  and  admit  or  exclude  it  on  the  slightest  cause. 
I  cannot  afford  to  speak  much  with  my  friend.  If  he 
is  great  he  makes  me  so  great  that  I  cannot  descend 
to  converse.  In  the  great  days,  presentiments  hover 
before  me,  far  before  me,  in  the  firmament.  I  ought 
then  to  dedicate  myself  to  them.  I  go  in  that  I  may 
seize  them,  I  go  out  that  I  may  seize  them.  I  fear 
only  that  I  may  lose  them  receding  into  the  sky  in 
which  now  they  are  only  a  patch  of  brighter  light. 
Then,  though  I  prize  my  friends,  I  cannot  afford  to 
talk  with  them  and  study  their  visions,  lest  I  lose  my 
own.  It  would  indeed  give  me  a  certain  household 
joy  to  quit  this  lofty  seeking,  this  spiritual  astronomy 
or  search  of  stars,  and  come  down  to  warm  sym 
pathies  with  you;  but  then  I  know  well  I  shall 
mourn  always  the  vanishing  of  my  mighty  gods.  It  is 
true,  next  week  I  shall  have  languid  times,  when  I 
can  well  afford  to  occupy  myself  with  foreign  objects  ; 
then  I  shall  regret  the  lost  literature  of  your  mind, 
and  wish  you  were  by  my  side  again.  But  if  you 
come,  perhaps  you  will  fill  my  mind  only  with  new 
visions ;  not  with  yourself  but  with  your  lustres,  and 


1 62  FRIENDSHIP. 

I  shall  not  be  able  any  more  than  now  to  converse 
with  you.;  So  I  will  owe  to  my  friends  this  evanes 
cent  intercourse.  I  will  receive  from  them  not  what 
they  have  but  what  they  are.  They  shall  give  me 
that  which  properly  they  cannot  give  me,  but  which 
emanates  from  them.  But  they  shall  not  hold  me  by 
any  relations  less  subtle  and  pure.  We  will  meet  as 
though  we  met  not,  and  part  as  though  we  parted 
not. 

It  has  seemed  to  me  lately  more  possible  than  I 
knew,  to  carry  a  friendship  greatly  on  one  side,  with 
out  due  correspondence  on  the  other.  Why  should 
I  cumber  myself  with  the  poor  fact  that  the  receiver 
is  not  capacious?  It  never  troubles  the  sun  that 
some  of  his  rays  fall  wide  and  vain  into  ungrateful 
space,  and  only  a  small  part  on  the  reflecting  planet. 
Let  your  greatness  educate  the  crude  and  cold  com 
panion.  If  he  is  unequal  he  will  presently  pass 
away  ;  but  thou  art  enlarged  by  thy  own  shining,  and 
no  longer  a  mate  for  frogs  and  worms,  dost  soar  and 
burn  with  the  gods  of  the  empyrean.  It  is  thought  a 
disgrace  to  love  unrequited.  But  the  great  will  see 
that  true  love  cannot  be  unrequited.  True  love 
transcends  instantly  the  unworthy  object  and  dwells 
and  broods  on  the  eternal,  and  when  the  poor  inter 
posed  mask  crumbles,  it  is  not  sad,  but  feels  rid  of 
so  much  earth  and  feels  its  independency  the  surer. 
Yet  these  things  may  hardly  be  said  without  a  sort  of 
treachery  to  the  relation.  The  essence  of  friendship 
is  entireness,  a  total  magnanimity  and  trust.  It 
must  not  surmise  or  provide  for  infirmity.  It  treats 
its  object  as  a  god,  that  it  may  deify  both. 


ESSAY   VII. 

PRUDENCE. 

WHAT  right  have  I  to  write  on  Prudence,  whereof 
I  have  little,  and  that  of  the  negative  sort  ?  My 
prudence  consists  in  avoiding  and  going  without, 
not  in  the  inventing  of  means  and  methods,  not  in 
adroit  steering,  not  in  gentle  repairing.  I  have  no 
skill  to  make  money  spend  well,  no  genius  in  my 
economy,  and  whoever  sees  my  garden  discovers 
that  I  must  have  some  other  garden.  Yet  I  love 
facts,  and  hate  lubricity  and  people  without  percep 
tion.  Then  I  have  the  same  title  to  write  on  pru 
dence  that  I  have  to  write  on  poetry  or  holiness. 
We  write  from  aspiration  and  antagonism,  as  well 
as  from  experience.  We  paint  those  qualities  which 
we  do  not  possess.  The  poet  admires  the  man  of 
energy  and  tactics ;  the  merchant  breeds  his  son  for 
the  church  or  the  bar ;  and  where  a  man  is  not  vain 
and  egotistic  you  shall  find  what  he  has  not  by  his 
praise.  Moreover  it  would  be  hardly  honest  in  me 
not  to  balance  these  fine  lyric  words  of  Love  and 
Friendship  with  words  of  coarser  sound,  and  whilst 
my  debt  to  my  senses  is  real  and  constant,  not  to 
own  it  in  passing. 

Prudence  is  the  virtue  of  the  senses.  It  is  the 

163 


1 64  PRUDENCE. 

science  of  appearances.  It  is  the  outmost  action  of 
the  inward  life.  It  is  God  taking  thought  for  oxen. 
It  moves  matter  after  the  laws  of  matter.  It  is  con 
tent  to  seek  health  of  body  by  complying  with  physi 
cal  conditions,  and  health  of  mind  by  the  laws  of 
the  intellect. 

The  world  of  the  senses  is  a  world  of  shows ;  it 
does  not  exist  for  itself,  but  has  a  symbolic  charac 
ter  ;  and  a  true  prudence  or  law  of  shows  recognizes 
the  co-presence  of  other  laws  and  knows  that  its 
own  office  is  subaltern ;  knows  that  it  is  surface  and 
not  centre  where  it  works.  Prudence  is  false  when 
detached.  It  is  legitimate  when  it  is  the  Natural 
History  of  the  soul  incarnate,  when  it  unfolds  the 
beauty  of  laws  within  the  narrow  scope  of  the 
senses. 

There  are  all  degrees  of  proficiency  in  knowledge 
of  the  world.  It  is  sufficient  to  our  present  purpose 
to  indicate  three.  One  class  lives  to  the  utility  of 
the  symbol,  esteeming  health  and  wealth  a  final 
good.  Another  class  live  above  this  mark  to  the 
beauty  of  the  symbol,  as  the  poet  and  artist  and  the 
naturalist  and  man  of  science.  A  third  class  live 
above  the  beauty  of  the  symbol  to  the  beauty  of  the 
thing  signified  ;  these  are  wise  men.  The  first  class 
have  common  sense ;  the  second,  taste ;  and  the 
third,  spiritual  perception.  Once  in  a  long  time,  a 
man  traverses  the  whole  scale,  and  sees  and  enjoys 
the  symbol  solidly,  then  also  has  a  clear  eye  for  its 
beauty,  and  lastly,  whilst  he  pitches  his  tent  on  this 
sacred  volcanic  isle  of  nature,  does  not  offer  to  build 
houses  and  barns  thereon,  reverencing  the  splendor 


PRUDENCE.  165 

of  the  God  which  he  sees  bursting  through  each 
chink  and  cranny. 

The  world  is  filled  with  the  proverbs  and  acts 
and  winkings  of  a  base  prudence,  which  is  a  devo 
tion  to  matter,  as  if  we  possessed  no  other  faculties 
than  the  palate,  the  nose,  the  touch,  the  eye  and 
ear;  a  prudence  which  adores  the  Rule  of  Three, 
which  never  subscribes,  which  gives  never,  which 
seldom  lends,  and  asks  but  one  question  of  any  proj 
ect,  —  Will  it  bake  bread  ?  This  is  a  disease  like  a 
thickening  of  the  skin  until  the  vital  organs  are  de 
stroyed.  But  culture,  revealing  the  high  origin  of 
the  apparent  world  and  aiming  at  the  perfection  of 
the  man  as  the  end,  degrades  every  thing  else,  as 
health  and  bodily  life,  into  means.  It  sees  prudence 
not  to  be  a  several  faculty,  but  a  name  for  wisdom 
and  virtue  conversing  with  the  body  and  its  wants. 
Cultivated  men  always  feel  and  speak  so  as  if  a 
great  fortune,  the  achievement  of  a  civil  or  social 
measure,  great  personal  influence,  a  graceful  and 
commanding  address,  had  their  value  as  proofs  of 
the  energy  of  the  spirit.  If  a  man  lose  his  balance 
and  immerse  himself  in  any  trades  or  pleasures  for 
their  own  sake,  he  may  be  a  good  wheel  or  pin,  but 
he  is  not  a  cultivated  man. 

The  spurious  prudence,  making  the  senses  final, 
is  the  god  of  sots  and  cowards,  and  is  the  subject  of 
all  comedy.  It  is  nature's  joke,  and  therefore  liter 
ature's.  The  true  prudence  limits  this  sensualism 
by  admitting  the  knowledge  of  an  internal  and  real 
world.  This  recognition  once  made,  —  the  order  of 
the  world  and  the  distribution  of  affairs  and  times, 


1 66  PRUDENCE. 

being  studied  with  the  co-perception  of  their  sub 
ordinate  place,  will  reward  any  degree  of  attention. 
For,  our  existence,  thus  apparently  attached  in  nature 
to  the  sun  and  the  returning  moon  and  the  periods 
which  they  mark;  so  susceptible  to  climate  and  to 
country,  so  alive  to  social  good  and  evil,  so  fond 
of  splendor  and  so  tender  to  hunger  and  cold  and 
debt,  —  reads  all  its  primary  lessons  out  of  these 
books. 

Prudence  does  not  go  behind  nature  and  ask 
whence  it  is?  It  takes  the  laws  of  the  world  whereby 
man^  being  is  conditioned,  as  they  are,  and  keeps 
these  laws  that  it  may  enjoy  their  proper  good.  It 
respects  space  and  time,  climate,  want,  sleep,  the 
law  of  polarity,  growth  and  death.  There  revolve, 
to  give  bound  and  period  to  his  being  on  all  sides, 
the  sun  and  moon,  the  great  formalists  in  the  sky: 
here  lies  stubborn  matter,  and  will  not  swerve  from 
its  chemical  routine.  Here  is  a  planted  globe, 
pierced  and  belted  with  natural  laws  and  fenced  and 
distributed  externally  with  civil  partitions  and  prop 
erties  which  impose  new  restraints  on  the  young 
inhabitant. 

We  eat  of  the  bread  which  grows  in  the  field.  We 
live  by  the  air  which  blows  around  us  and  we  are 
poisoned  by  the  air  that  is  too  cold  or  too  hot,  too 
dry  or  too  wet.  Time,  which  shows  so  vacant,  in 
divisible  and  divine  in  its  coming,  is  slit  and  peddled 
into  trifles  and  tatters.  A  door  is  to  be  painted,  a 
lock  to  be  repaired.  I  want  wood  or  oil,  or  meal  or 
salt ;  the  house  smokes,  or  I  have  a  headache ;  then 
the  tax ;  and  an  affair  to  be  transacted  with  a  man 


PRUDENCE.  167 

without  heart  or  brains,  and  the  stinging  recollection 
of  an  injurious  or  very  awkward  word,  —  these  eat  up 
the  hours.  Do  what  we  can,  summer  will  have  its 
flies.  If  we  walk  in  the  woods  we  must  feed  mos- 
quitos.  If  we  go  a-fishing  we  must  expect  a  wet  coat. 
.  Then  climate  is  a  great  impediment  to  idle  persons. 
We  often  resolve  to  give  up  the  care  of  the  weather, 
but  still  we  regard  the  clouds  and  the  rain. 

We  are  instructed  by  these  petty  experiences  which 
usurp  the  hours  and  years.  The  hard  soil  and  four 
months  of  snow  make  the  inhabitant  of  the  northern 
temperate  zone  wiser  and  abler  than  his  fellow  who 
enjoys  the  fixed  smile  of  the  tropics.  The  islander 
may  ramble  all  day  at  will.  At  night  he  may  sleep 
on  a  mat  under  the  moon,  and  wherever  a  wild  date- 
tree  grows,  nature  has,  without  a  prayer  even,  spread 
a  table  for  his  morning  meal.  The  northerner  is 
perforce  a  householder.  He  must  brew,  bake,  salt 
and  preserve  his  food.  He  must  pile  wood  and  coal. 
But  as  it  happens  that  not  one  stroke  can  labor  lay 
to  without  some  new  acquaintance  with  nature ;  and 
as  nature  is  inexhaustibly  significant,  the  inhabitants 
of  these  climates  have  always  excelled  the  southerner 
in  force.  Such  is  the  value  of  these  matters  that  a 
man  who  knows  other  things  can  never  know  too 
much  of  these.  Let  him  have  accurate  perceptions. 
Let  him,  if  he  have  hands,  handle ;  if  eyes,  measure 
and  discriminate ;  let  him  accept  and  hive  every  fact 
of  chemistry,  natural  history  and  economics ;  the 
more  he  has,  the  less  is  he  willing  to  spare  any  one. 
Time  is  always  bringing  the  occasions  that  disclose 
their  value.  Some  wisdom  comes  out  of  every 


1 68  PRUDENCE. 

natural  and  innocent  action.  The  domestic  man, 
who  loves  no  music  so  well  as  his  kitchen  clock  and 
the  airs  which  the  logs  sing  to  him  as  they  burn  on 
the  hearth,  has  solaces  which  others  never  dream  of. 
The  application  of  means  to  ends  ensures  victory  and 
the  songs  of  victory  not  less  in  a  farm  or  a  shop  than 
in  the  tactics  of  party  or  of  war.  The  good  husband 
finds  method  as  efficient  in  the  packing  of  fire-wood 
in  a  shed  or  in  the  harvesting  of  fruits  in  the  cellar, 
as  in  Peninsular  campaigns  or  the  files  of  the  Depart 
ment  of  State.  In  the  rainy  day  he  builds  a  work 
bench,  or  gets  his  tool-box  set  in  the  corner  of  the 
barn-chamber,  and  stored  with  nails,  gimlet,  pincers, 
screwdriver  and  chisel.  Herein  he  tastes  an  old  joy 
of  youth  and  childhood,  the  cat-like  love  of  garrets, 
presses  and  corn-chambers,  and  of  the  conveniences 
of  long  housekeeping.  His  garden  or  his  poultry- 
yard —  very  paltry  places  it  may  be  —  tells  him  many 
pleasant  anecdotes.  One  might  find  argument  for 
optimism  in  the  abundant  flow  of  this  saccharine 
element  of  pleasure  in  every  suburb  and  extremity  of 
the  good  world.  Let  a  man  keep  the  law,  —  any 
law,  —  and  his  way  will  be  strown  with  satisfactions. 
There  is  more  difference  in  the  quality  of  our  pleas 
ures  than  in  the  amount. 

On  the  other  hand,  nature  punishes  any  neglect  of 
prudence.  If  you  think  the  senses  final,  obey  their 
law.  If  you  believe  in  the  soul,  do  not  clutch  at 
sensual  sweetness  before  it  is  ripe  on  the  slow  tree  of 
cause  and  effect.  It  is  vinegar  to  the  eyes  to  deal 
with  men  of  loose  and  imperfect  perception.  Dr. 
Johnson  is  reported  to  have  said,  —  "If  the  child 


PRUDENCE.  169 

says  he  looked  out  of  this  window,  when  he  looked 
out  of  that,  —  whip  him."  Our  American  character 
is  marked  by  a  more  than  average  delight  in  accu 
rate  perception,  which  is  shown  by  the  currency  of 
the  by-word,  "No  mistake."  But  the  discomfort  of 
unpunctuality,  of  confusion  of  thought  about  facts, 
inattention  to  the  wants  of  to-morrow,  is  of  no 
nation.  The  beautiful  laws  of  time  and  space,  once 
dislocated  by  our  inaptitude,  are  holes  and  dens.  If 
the  hive  be  disturbed  by  rash  and  stupid  hands,  in 
stead  of  honey  it  will  yield  us  bees.  Our  words  and 
actions  to  be  fair  must  be  timely.  A  gay  and  pleas 
ant  sound  is  the  whetting  of  the  scythe  in  the  morn 
ings  of  June ;  yet  what  is  more  lonesome  and  sad 
than  the  sound  of  a  whetstone  or  mower's  rifle  when 
it  is  too  late  in  the  season  to  make  hay?  Scatter 
brained  and  "afternoon  men"  spoil  much  more  than 
their  own  affair  in  spoiling  the  temper  of  those  who 
deal  with  them.  I  have  seen  a  criticism  on  some 
paintings,  of  which  I  am  reminded  when  I  see  the 
shiftless  and  unhappy  men  who  are  not  true  to  their 
senses.  The  last  Grand  Duke  of  .Weimar,  a  man  of 
superior  understanding,  said:  "I  have  sometimes 
remarked  in  the  presence  of  great  works  of  art,  and 
just  now  especially  in  Dresden,  how  much  a  certain 
property  contributes  to  the  effect  which  gives  life  to 
the  figures,  and  to  the  life  an  irresistible  truth.  This 
property  is  the  hitting,  in  all  the  figures  we  draw,  the 
right  centre  of  gravity.  I  mean  the  placing  the  fig 
ures  firm  upon  their  feet,  making  the  hands  grasp, 
and  fastening  the  eyes  on  the  spot  where  they  should 
look.  Even  lifeless  figures,  as  vessels  and  stools  — 


17°  PRUDENCE. 

let  them  be  drawn  ever  so  correctly  —  lose  all  effect 
so  soon  as  they  lack  the  resting  upon  their  centre  of 
gravity,  and  have  a  certain  swimming  and  oscillating 
appearance.  The  Raphael  in  the  Dresden  gallery 
(the  only  great  affecting  picture  which  I  have  seen) 
is  the  quietest  and  most  passionless  piece  you  can 
imagine ;  a  couple  of  saints  who  worship  the  Virgin 
and  child.  Nevertheless  it  awakens  a  deeper  im 
pression  than  the  contortions  of  ten  crucified  mar 
tyrs.  For,  beside  all  the  resistless  beauty  of  form,  it 
possesses  in  the  highest  degree  the  property  of  the 
perpendicularity  of  all  the  figures."  This  perpen 
dicularity  we  demand  of  all  the  figures  in  this  picture 
of  life.  Let  them  stand  on  their  feet,  and  not  float 
and  swing.  Let  us  know  where  to  find  them.  Let 
them  discriminate  between  what  they  remember  and 
what  they  dreamed.  Let  them  call  a  spade  a  spade. 
Let  them  give  us  facts,  and  honor  their  own  senses 
with  trust. 

But  what  man  shall  dare  task  another  with  impru 
dence?  Who  is  prudent?  The  men  we  call  greatest 
are  least  in  this  kingdom.  There  is  a  certain  fatal 
dislocation  in  our  relation  to  nature,  distorting  all 
our  modes  of  living  and  making  every  law  our  enemy, 
which  seems  at  last  to  have  aroused  all  the  wit  and 
virtue  in  the  world  to  ponder  the  question  of  Reform. 
We  must  call  the  highest  prudence  to  counsel,  and 
ask  why  health  and  beauty  and  genius  should  now  be 
the  exception  rather  than  the  rule  of  human  nature? 
We  do  not  know  the  properties  of  plants  and  animals 
and  the  laws  of  nature,  through  our  sympathy  with 
the  same ;  but  this  remains  the  dream  of  poets. 


PRUDENCE.  171 

Poetry  and  prudence  should  be  coincident.  Poets 
should  be  lawgivers ;  that  is,  the  boldest  lyric  inspi 
ration  should  not  chide  and  insult,  but  should  an 
nounce  and  lead  the  civil  code  and  the  day's  work. 
But  now  the  two  things  seem  irreconcilably  parted. 
We  have  violated  law  upon  law  until  we  stand  amidst 
ruins,  and  when  by  chance  we  espy  a  coincidence 
between  reason  and  the  phenomena,  we  are  surprised. 
Beauty  should  be  the  dowry  of  every  man  and  woman, 
as  invariably  as  sensation ;  but  it  is  rare.  Health  or 
sound  organization  should'  be  universal.  Genius 
should  be  the  child  of  genius,  and  every  child  should 
be  inspired ;  but  now  it  is  not  to  be  predicted  of  any 
child,  and  nowhere  is  it  pure.  We  call  partial  half 
lights,  by  courtesy,  genius ;  talent  which  converts 
itself  to  money;  talent  which  glitters  to-day  that  it 
may  dine  and  sleep  well  to-morrow ;  and  society  is 
officered  by  men  of  parts,  as  they  are  properly  called, 
and  not  by  divine  men.  These  use  their  gifts  to 
refine  luxury,  not  to  abolish  it.  Genius  is  always 
ascetic ;  and  piety,  and  love.  Appetite  shows  to  the 
finer  souls  as  a  disease,  and  they  find  beauty  in  rites 
and  bounds  that  resist  it. 

We  have  found  out  fine  names  to  cover  our  sen 
suality  withal,  but  no  gifts  can  raise  intemperance. 
The  man  of  talent  affects  to  call  his  transgressions  of 
the  laws  of  the  senses  trivial  and  to  count  them  noth 
ing  considered  with  his  devotion  to  his  art.  His  art 
.rebukes  him.  That  never  taught  him  lewdness,  nor 
the  love  of  wine,  nor  the  wish  to  reap  where  he  had 
not  sowed.  His  art  is  less  for  every  deduction  from 
his  holiness,  and  less  for  every  defect  of  common 


172  PRUDENCE. 

sense.  On  him  who  scorned  the  world,  as  he  said, 
the  scorned  world  wreaks  its  revenge.  He  that  de- 
spiseth  small  things  will  perish  by  little  and  little. 
Goethe's  Tasso  is  very  likely  to  be  a  pretty  fair  his 
torical  portrait,  and  that  is  true  tragedy.  It  does  not 
seem  to  me  so  genuine  grief  when  some  tyrannous 
Richard  III.  oppresses  and  slays  a  score  of  innocent 
persons,  as  when  Antonio  and  Tasso,  both  appar 
ently  right,  wrong  each  other.  One  living  after  the 
maxims  of  this  world  and  consistent  and  true  to  them, 
the  other  fired  with  all  divine  sentiments,  yet  grasp 
ing  also  at  the  pleasures  of  sense,  without  submitting 
to  their  law.  That  is  a  grief  we  all  feel,  a  knot  we 
cannot  untie.  Tasso's  is  no  infrequent  case  in 
modern  biography.  A  man  of  genius,  of  an  ardent 
temperament,  reckless  of  physical  laws,  self-indul 
gent,  becomes  presently  unfortunate,  querulous,  a 
"  discomfortable  cousin,"  a  thorn  to  himself  and  to 
others. 

The  scholar  shames  us  by  his  bifold  life.  Whilst 
something  higher  than  prudence  is  active,  he  is  ad 
mirable  ;  when  common  sense  is  wanted,  he  is  an 
encumbrance.  Yesterday,  Caesar  was  not  so  great; 
to-day,  Job  not  so  miserable.  Yesterday,  radiant 
with  the  light  of  an  ideal  world  in  which  he  lives,  the 
first  of  men,  and  now  oppressed  by  wants  and  by 
sickness,  for  which  he  must  thank  himself,  none  is  so 
poor  to  do  him  reverence.  He  resembles  the  opium 
eaters  whom  travellers  describe  as  frequenting  the 
bazaars  of  Constantinople,  who  skulk  about  all  day, 
the  most  pitiful  drivellers,  yellow,  emaciated,  ragged, 
sneaking;  then  at  evening,  when  the  bazaars  are 


PRUDENCE.  173 

open,  they  slink  to  the  opium-shop,  swallow  their 
morsel  and  become  tranquil,  glorious  and  great. 
And  who  has  not  seen  the  tragedy  of  imprudent 
genius  struggling  for  years  with  paltry  pecuniary 
difficulties,  at  last  sinking,  chilled,  exhausted  and 
fruitless,  like  a  giant  slaughtered  by  pins? 

Is  it  not  better  that  a  man  should  accept  the  first 
pains  and  mortifications  of  this  sort,  which  nature  is 
not  slack  in  sending  him,  as  hints  that  he  must  expect 
no  other  good  than  the  just  fruit  of  his  own  labor  and 
self-denial?  Health,  bread,  climate,  social  position, 
have  their  importance,  and  he  will  give  them  their 
due.  Let  him  esteem  Nature  a  perpetual  counsellor, 
and  her  perfections  the  exact  measure  of  our  devia 
tions.  Let  him  make  the  night  night,  and  the  day 
day.  Let  him  control  the  habit  of  expense.  Let 
him  see  that  as  much  wisdom  may  be  expended  on  a 
private  economy  as  on  an  empire,  and  as  much  wis 
dom  may  be  drawn  from  it.  The  laws  of  the  world 
are  written  out  for  him  on  every  piece  of  money  in 
his  hand.  There  is  nothing  he  will  not  be  the  better 
for  knowing,  were  it  only  the  wisdom  of  Poor  Rich 
ard,  or  the  State-street  prudence  of  buying  by  the 
acre  to  sell  by  the  foot ;  or  the  thrift  of  the  agricul 
turist,  to  stick  a  tree  between  whiles,  because  it  will 
grow  whilst  he  sleeps ;  or  the  prudence  which  con 
sists  in  husbanding  little  strokes  of  the  tool,  little 
portions  of  time,  particles  of  stock  and  small  gains. 
The  eye  of  prudence  may  never  shut.  Iron,  if  kept 
at  the  ironmonger's,  will  rust ;  beer,  if  not  brewed  in 
the  right  state  of  the  atmosphere,  will  sour ;  timber 
of  ships  will  rot  at  sea,  or  if  laid  up  high  and  dry, 


174  PRUDENCE. 

will  strain,  warp  and  dry-rot.  Money,  if  kept  by  us, 
yields  no  rent  and  is  liable  to  loss ;  if  invested,  is 
liable  to  depreciation  of  the  particular  kind  of  stock. 
Strike,  says  the  smith,  the  iron  is  white.  Keep  the 
rake,  says  the  haymaker,  as  nigh  the  scythe  as  you 
can,  and  the  cart  as  nigh  the  rake.  Our  Yankee 
trade  is  reputed  to  be  very  much  on  the  extreme  of 
this  prudence.  It  saves  itself  by  its  activity.  It 
takes  bank  notes, — good,  bad,  clean,  ragged,  and 
saves  itself  *by  the  speed  with  which  it  passes  them 
off.  Iron  cannot  rust,  nor  beer  sour,  nor  timber  rot, 
nor  calicoes  go  out  of  fashion,  nor  money  stocks 
depreciate,  in  the  few  swift  moments  in  which  the 
Yankee  suffers  any  one  of  them  to  remain  in  his  pos 
session.  In  skating  over  thin  ice  our  safety  is  in  our 
speed. 

Let  him  learn  a  prudence  of  a  higher  strain.  Let 
him  learn  that  every  thing  in  nature,  even  motes  and 
feathers,  go  by  law  and  not  by  luck,  and  that  what  he 
sows  he  reaps.  By  diligence  and  self-command  let 
him  put  the  bread  he  eats  at  his  own  disposal,  and 
not  at  that  of  others,  that  he  may  not  stand  in  bitter 
and  false  relations  to  other  men ;  for  the  best  good 
of  wealth  is  freedom.  Let  him  practise  the  minor 
virtues.  How  much  of  human  life  is  lost  in  waiting! 
Let  him  not  make  his  fellow  creatures  wait.  How 
many  words  and  promises  are  promises  of  conversa 
tion  !  Let  his  be  words  of  fate.  When  he  sees  a 
folded  and  sealed  scrap  of  paper  float  round  the  globe 
in  a  pine  ship  and  come  safe  to  the  eye  for  which  it 
was  written,  amidst  a  swarming  population ;  let  him 
likewise  feel  the  admonition  to  integrate  his  being 


PRUDENCE.  175 

across  all  these  distracting  forces,  and  keep  a  slender 
human  word  among  the  storms,  distances  and  acci 
dents  that  drive  us  hither  and  thither,  and,  by  persist 
ency,  make  the  paltry  force  of  one  man  reappear  to 
redeem  its  pledge  after  months  and  years  in  the  most 
distant  climates. 

We  must  not  try  to  write  the  laws  of  any  one  vir 
tue,  looking  at  that  only.  Human  nature  loves  no 
contradictions,  but  is  symmetrical.  The  prudence 
which  secures  an  outward  well-being  is  not  to  be 
studied  by  one  set  of  men,  whilst  heroism  and  holi 
ness  are  studied  by  another,  but  they  are  reconcil 
able.  Prudence  concerns  the  present  time,  persons, 
property  and  existing  forms.  But  as  every  fact  hath 
its  roots  in  the  soul,  and,  if  the  soul  were  changed, 
would  cease  to  be,  or  would  become  some  other 
thing,  therefore  the  proper  administration  of  outward 
things  will  always  rest  on  a  just  apprehension  of 
their  cause  and  origin ;  that  is,  the  good  man  will 
be  the  wise  man,  and  the  single-hearted  the  politic 
man.  Every  violation  of  truth  is  not  only  a  sort  of 
suicide  in  the  liar,  but  is  a  stab-  at  the  health  of 
human  society.  On  the  most  profitable  lie  the  course 
of  events  presently  lays  a  destructive  tax ;  whilst 
frankness  proves  to  be  the  best  tactics,  for  it  invites 
frankness,  puts  the  parties  on  a  convenient  footing 
and  makes  their  business  a  friendship.  Trust  men 
and  they  will  be  true  to  you ;  treat  them  greatly  and 
they  will  show  themselves  great,  though  they  make 
an  exception  in  your  favor  to  all  their  rules  of  trade. 

So,  in  regard  to  disagreeable  and  formidable 
things,  prudence  does  not  consist  in  evasion  or  in 


176  PRUDENCE. 

flight,  but  in  courage.  He  who  wishes  to  walk  in 
the  most  peaceful  parts  of  life  with  any  serenity  must 
screw  himself  up  to  resolution.  Let  him  front  the 
object  of  his  worst  apprehension,  and  his  stoutness 
will  commonly  make  his-  fears  groundless.  The  Latin 
proverb  says,  "in  battles  the  eye  is  first  overcome.1" 
The  eye  is  daunted  and  greatly  exaggerates  the 
perils  of  the  hour.  Entire  self-possession  may  make 
a  battle  very  little  more  dangerous  to  life  than  a 
match  at  foils  or  at  football.  Examples  are  cited  by 
soldiers,  of  men  who  have  seen  the  cannon  pointed 
and  the  fire  given  to  it,  and  who  have  stepped  aside 
from  the  path  of  the  ball.  The  terrors  of  the  storm 
are  chiefly  confined  to  the  parlor  and  the  cabin.  The 
drover,  the  sailor,  buffets  it  all  day,  and  his  health 
renews  itself  at  as  vigorous  a  pulse  under  the  sleet  as 
under  the  sun  of  June. 

In  the  occurrence  of  unpleasant  things  among 
neighbors,  fear  comes  readily  to  heart  and  magnifies 
the  consequence  of  the  other  party;  but  it  is  a  bad 
counsellor.  Every  man  is  actually  weak  and  appar 
ently  strong.  To  himself  he  seems  weak ;  to  others 
formidable.  You  are  afraid  of  Grim  ;  but  Grim  also 
is  afraid  of  you.  You  are  solicitous  of  the  good 
will  of  the  meanest  person,  uneasy  at  his  ill  will. 
But  the  sturdiest  offender  of  your  peace  and  of  the 
neighborhood,  if  you  rip  up  his  claims,  is  as  thin  and 
timid  as  any ;  and  the  peace  of  society  is  often  kept, 
because,  as  children  say,  one  is  afraid  and  the  other 
dares  not.  Far  off,  men  swell,  bully  and  threaten: 
bring  them  hand  to  hand,  and  they  are  a  feeble  folk. 

It  is  a  proverb  that  *  courtesy  costs  nothing';  but 


PRUDENCE.  177 

calculation  might  come  to  value  love  for  its  profit. 
Love  is  fabled  to  be  blind,  but  kindness  is  necessary 
to  perception ;  love  is  not  a  hood,  but  an  eye-water. 
If  you  meet  a  sectary  or  a  hostile  partisan,  never 
recognize  the  dividing  lines,  but  meet  on  what  com 
mon  ground  remains,  —  if  only  that  the  sun  shines 
and  the  rain  rains  for  both,  —  the  area  will  widen 
very  fast,  and  ere  you  know  it,  the  boundary  moun 
tains  on  which  the  eye  had  fastened  have  melted  into 
air.  If  he  set  out  to  contend,  almost  St.  Paul  will 
lie,  almost  St.  John  will  hate.  What  low,  poor,  pal 
try,  hypocritical  people  an  argument  on  religion  will 
make  of  the  pure  and  chosen  souls.  Shuffle  they  will 
and  crow,  crook  and  hide,  feign  to  confess  here,  only 
that  they  may  brag  and  conquer  there,  and  not  a 
thought  has  enriched  either  party,  and  not  an  emotion 
of  bravery,  modesty,  or  hope.  So  neither  should 
you  put  yourself  in  a  false  position  to  your  contem 
poraries  by  indulging  a  vein  of  hostility  and  bitter 
ness.  Though  your  views  are  in  straight  antagonism 
to  theirs,  assume  an  identity  of  sentiment,  assume 
that  you  are  saying  precisely  that  which  all  think, 
and  in  the  flow  of  wit  and  love  roll  out  your  para 
doxes  in  solid  column,  with  not  the  infirmity  of  a 
doubt.  So  at  least  shall  you  get  an  adequate  deliver 
ance.  The  natural  motions  of  the  soul  are  so  much 
better  than  the  voluntary  ones  that  you  will  never  do 
yourself  justice  in  dispute.  The  thought  is  not  then 
taken  hold  of  by  the  right  handle,  does  not  show 
itself  proportioned  and  in  its  true  bearings,  but  bears 
extorted,  hoarse,  and  half  witness.  But  assume  a 
consent  and  it  shall  presently  be  granted,  since  really 


178  PRUDENCE. 

and  underneath  their  all  external  diversities,  all  men 
are  of  one  heart  and  mind. 

Wisdom  will  never  let  us  stand  with  any  man  or 
men  on  an  unfriendly  footing.  We  refuse  sympathy 
and  intimacy  with  people,  as  if  we  waited  for  some 
better  sympathy  and  intimacy  to  come.  But  whence 
and  when?  To-morrow  will  be  like  to-day.  Life 
wastes  itself  whilst  we  are  preparing  to  live.  Our 
friends  and  fellow-workers  die  off  from  us.  Scarcely 
can  we  say  we  see  new  men,  new  women,  approaching 
us.  We  are  too  old  to  regard  fashion,  too  old  to  expect 
patronage  of  any  greater  or  more  powerful.  Let  us 
suck  the  sweetness  of  those  affections  and  consue 
tudes  that  grow  near  us.  These  old  shoes  are  easy 
to  the  feet.  Undoubtedly  we  can  easily  pick  faults 
in  our  company,  can  easily  whisper  names  prouder, 
and  that  tickle  the  fancy  more.  Every  man's  imagin 
ation  hath  its  friends ;  and  pleasant  would  life  be  with 
such  companions.  But  if  you  cannot  have  them  on 
good  mutual  terms,  you  cannot  have  them.  If  not  the 
Deity  but  our  ambition  hews  and  shapes  the  new  rela 
tions,  their  virtue  escapes,  as  strawberries  lose  their 
flavor  in  garden  beds. 

Thus  truth,  frankness,  courage,  love,  humility  and 
all  the  virtues  range  themselves  on  the  side  of  pru 
dence,  or  the  art  of  securing  a  present  well-being. 
I  do  not  know  if  all  matter  will  be  found  to  be  made 
of  one  element,  as  oxygen  or  hydrogen,  at  last,  but 
the  world  of  manners  and  actions  is  wrought  of  one 
stuff,  and  begin  where  we  will  we  are  pretty  sure  in  a 
short  space  to  be  mumbling  our  ten  commandments. 


ESSAY   VIII. 

HEROISM. 

Paradise  is  under  the  shadow  of  swords. 

—  Mahomet* 

IN  the  elder  English  dramatists,  and  mainly  in  the 
plays  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  there  is  a  constant 
recognition  of  gentility,  as  if  a  noble  behavior  were 
as  easily  marked  in  the  society  of  their  age  as  color 
is  in  our  American  population.  When  any  Rodrigo, 
Pedro  or  Valerio  enters,  though  he  be  a  stranger,  the 
duke  or  governor  exclaims,  *  This  is  a  gentleman,' 
and  proffers  civilities  without  end ;  but  all  the  rest  are 
slag  and  refuse.  In  harmony  with  this  delight  in 
personal  advantages  there  is  in  their  plays  a  certain 
heroic  cast  of  character  and  dialogue,  —  as  in  Bon- 
duca,  Sophocles,  the  Mad  Lover,  the  Double  Mar 
riage,  —  wherein  the  speaker  is  so  earnest  and  cordial 
and  on  such  deep  grounds  of  character,  that  the  dia 
logue,  on  the  slightest  additional  incident  in  the  plot, 
rises  naturally  into  poetry.  Among  many  texts  take  the 
following.  The  Roman  Martius  has  conquered  Athens, 
—  all  but  the  invincible  spirits  of  Sophocles,  the  duke 
of  Athens,  and  Dorigen,  his  wife.  The  beauty  of  the 
latter  inflames  Martius,  and  he  seeks  to  save  her  hus- 

179 


i8o  HEROISM. 

band ;  but  Sophocles  will  not  ask  his  life,  although 
assured  that  a  word  will  save  him,  and  the  execution 
of  both  proceeds  :  — 

Valerius.     Bid  thy  wife  farewell. 

Soph.     No,  I  will  take  no  leave.     My  Dorigen, 
Yonder,  above,  'bout  Ariadne's  crown, 
My  spirit  shall  hover  for  thee.     Prithee,  haste. 

Dor.     Stay,  Sophocles,  —  with  this  tie  up  my  sight; 
Let  not  soft  nature  so  transformed  be, 
And  lose  her  gentler  sexed  humanity, 
To  make  me  see  my  lord  bleed.    So,  't  is  well ; 
Never  one  object  underneath  the  sun 
Will  I  behold  before  my  Sophocles : 
Farewell ;  now  teach  the  Romans  how  to  die. 

Mar.     Dost  know  what  't  is  to  die? 

Soph.    Thou  dost  not,  Martius, 
And,  therefore,  not  what  't  is  to  live ;  to  die 
Is  to  begin  to  live.     It  is  to  end 
An  old,  stale,  weary  work  and  to  commence 
A  newer  and  a  better.     'T  is  to  leave 
Deceitful  knaves  for  the  society 
Of  gods  and  goodness.     Thou  thyself  must  part 
At  last  from  all  thy  garlands,  pleasures,  triumphs, 
And  prove  thy  fortitude  what  then  't  will  do. 

Val.     But  art  not  grieved  nor  vexed  to  leave  thy  life  thus? 

Soph.    Why  should  I  grieve  or  vex  for  being  sent 
To  them  I  ever  loved  best?     Now  I'll  kneel, 
But  with  my  back  toward  thee  :  't  is  the  last  duty 
This  trunk  can  do  the  gods. 

Mar.     Strike,  strike,  Valerius, 
Or  Martius'  heart  will  leap  out  at  his  mouth. 
This  is  a  man,  a  woman.     Kiss  thy  lord, 
And  live  with  all  the  freedom  you  were  wont. 
O  love !  thou  doubly  hast  afflicted  me 
With  virtue  and  with  beauty.     Treacherous  heart, 
My  hand  shall  cast  thee  quick  into  my  urn, 


HEROISM.  181 

Ere  thou  transgress  this  knot  of  piety. 

VaL     What  ails  my  brother  ? 

Soph.     Martius,  O  Martius, 
Thou  now  hast  found  a  way  to  conquer  me. 

Dor.     O  star  of  Rome  !  what  gratitude  can  speak 
Fit  words  to  follow  such  a  deed  as  this  ? 

Mar.    This  admirable  duke,  Valerius, 
With  his  disdain  of  fortune  and  of  death, 
Captived  himself,  has  captivated  me, 
And  though  my  arm  hath  ta'en  his  body  here, 
His  soul  hath  subjugated  Martius'  soul. 
By  Romulus,  he  is  all  soul,  I  think; 
He  hath  no  flesh,  and  spirit  cannot  be  gyved, 
Then  we  have  vanquished  nothing ;  he  is  free, 
And  Martius  walks  now  in  captivity. 

I  do  not  readily  remember  any  poem,  play,  ser 
mon,  novel  or  oration  that  our  press  vents  in  the 
last  few  years,  which  goes  to  the  same  tune.  We 
have  a  great  many  flutes  and  flageolets,  but  not 
often  the  sound  of  any  fife.  Yet  Wordsworth's 
*'  Laodamia,"  and  the  ode  of  "  Dion,"  and  some 
sonnets,  have  a  certain  noble  music ;  and  Scott  will 
sometimes  draw  a  stroke  like  the  portrait  of  Lord 
Evandale  given  by  Balfour  of  Burley.  Thomas 
Carlyle,  with  his  natural  taste  for  what  is  manly 
and  daring  in  character,  has  suffered  no  heroic  trait 
in  his  favorites  to  drop  from  his  biographical  and 
historical  pictures.  Earlier,  Robert  Burns  has  given 
us  a  song  or  two.  In  the  Harleian  Miscellanies 
there  is  an  account  of  the  battle  of  Lutzen  which 
deserves  to  be  read.  And  Simon  Ockley's  History 
of  the  Saracens  recounts  the  prodigies  of  individual 
valor,  with  admiration  all  the  more  evident  on  the 


1 82  HEROISM. 

part  of  the  narrator  that  he  seems  to  think  that  his 
place  in  Christian  Oxford  requires  of  him  some 
proper  protestations  of  abhorrence.  But  if  we  ex 
plore  the  literature  of  Heroism  we  shall  quickly 
come  to  Plutarch,  who  is  its  Doctor  and  historian. 
To  him  we  owe  the  Brasidas,  the  Dion,  the  Epam- 
inondas,  the  Scipio  of  old,  and  I  must  think  we 
are  more  deeply  indebted  to  him  than  to  all  the 
ancient  writers.  Each  of  his  "  Lives  "  is  a  refutation 
to  the  despondency  and  cowardice  of  our  religious 
and  political  theorists.  A  wild  courage,  a  stoicism 
not  of  the  schools  but  of  the  blood,  shines  in  every 
anecdote,  and  has  given  that  book  its  immense 
fame. 

We  need  books  of  this  tart  cathartic  virtue  more 
than  books  of  political  science  or  of  private  econ 
omy.  Life  is  a  festival  only  to  the  wise.  Seen  from 
the  nook  and  chimney-side  of  prudence,  it  wears  a 
ragged  and  dangerous  front.  The  violations  of  the 
laws  of  nature  by  our  predecessors  and  our  contem 
poraries  are  punished  in  us  also.  The  disease  and 
deformity  around  us  certify  the  infraction  of  natural, 
intellectual  and  moral  laws,  and  often  violation  on 
violation  to  breed  such  compound  misery.  A  lock 
jaw  that  bends  a  man's  head  back  to  his  heels ;  hy 
drophobia  that  makes  him  bark  at  his  wife  and 
babes ;  insanity  that  makes  him  eat  grass ;  war, 
plague,  cholera,  famine,  indicate  a  certain  ferocity 
in  nature,  which,  as  it  had  its  inlet  by  human  crime, 
must  have  its  outlet  by  human  suffering.  Unhap 
pily  almost  no  man  exists  who  has  not  in  his  own 
person  become  to  some  amount  a  stockholder  in  the 


HEROISM.  183 

sin,  and  so  made  himself  liable  to  a  share  in  the 
expiation. 

Our  culture  therefore  must  not  omit  the  arming 
of  the  man.  Let  him  hear  in  season  that  he  is 
born  into  the  state  of  war,  and  that  the  common 
wealth  and  his  own  well-being  require  that  he 
should  not  go  dancing  in  the  weeds  of  peace,  but 
warned,  self-collected  and  neither  defying  nor  dread 
ing  the  thunder,  let  him  take  both  reputation  and 
life  in  his  hand,  and  with  perfect  urbanity  dare  the 
gibbet  and  the  mob  by  the  absolute  truth  of  his 
speech  and  the  rectitude  of  his  behavior. 

Towards  all  this  external  evil  the  man  within  the 
breast  assumes  a  warlike  attitude,  and  affirms  his 
ability  to  cope  single-handed  with  the  infinite  army 
of  enemies.  To  this  military  attitude  of  the  soul 
we  give  the  name  of  Heroism.  Its  rudest  form  is 
the  contempt  for  safety  and  ease,  which  makes  the 
attractiveness  of  war.  It  is  a  self-trust  which  slights 
the  restraints  of  prudence,  in  the  plenitude  of  its 
energy  and  power  to  repair  the  harms  it  may  suffer. 
The  hero  is  a  mind  of  such  balance  that  no  disturb 
ances  can  shake  his  will,  but  pleasantly  and  as  it 
were  merrily  he  advances  to  his  own  music,  alike  in 
frightful  alarms  and  in  the  tipsy  mirth  of  universal 
dissoluteness.  There  is  somewhat  not  philosophical 
in  heroism ;  there  is  somewhat  not  holy  in  it ;  it 
seems  not  to  know  that  other  souls  are  of  one  tex 
ture  with  it ;  it  hath  pride ;  it  is  the  extreme  of  in 
dividual  nature.  Nevertheless  we  must  profoundly 
revere  it.  There  is  somewhat  in  great  actions 
which  does  not  allow  us  to  go  behind  them.  Hero- 


1 84  HEROISM. 

ism  feels  and  never  reasons,  and  therefore  is  always 
right;  and  although  a  different  breeding,  different 
religion  and  greater  intellectual  activity  would  have 
modified  or  even  reversed  the  particular  action,  yet 
for  the  hero  that  thing  he  does  is  the  highest  deed, 
and  is  not  open  to  the  censure  of  philosophers  or 
divines.  It  is  the  avowal  of  the  unschooled  man 
that  he  finds  a  quality  in  him  that  is  negligent  of 
expense,  of  health,  of  life,  of  danger,  of  hatred,  of 
reproach,  and  that  he  knows  that  his  will  is  higher 
and  more  excellent  than  all  actual  and  all  possible 
antagonists. 

Heroism  works  in  contradiction  to  the  voice  of 
mankind  and  in  contradiction,  for  a  time,  to  the 
voice  of  the  great  and  good.  Heroism  is  an  obedi 
ence  to  a  secret  impulse  of  an  individual's  character. 
Now  to  no  other  man  can  its  wisdom  appear  as  it 
does  to  him,  for  every  man  must  be  supposed  to 
see  a  little  farther  on  his  own  proper  path  than  any 
one  else.  Therefore  just  and  wise  men  take  um 
brage  at  his  act,  until  after  some  little  time  be  past : 
then  they  see  it  to  be  in  unison  with  their  acts.  All 
prudent  men  see  that  the  action  is  clean  contrary  to 
a  sensual  prosperity ;  for  every  heroic  act  measures 
itself  by  its  contempt  of  some  external  good.  But 
it  finds  its  own  success  at  last,  and  then  the  prudent 
also  extol. 

Self-trust  is  the  essence  of  heroism.  It  is  the 
state  of  the  soul  at  war,  and  its  ultimate  objects  are 
the  last  defiance  of  falsehood  and  wrong,  and  the 
power  to  bear  all  that  can  be  inflicted  by  evil  agents. 
It  speaks  the  truth  and  it  is  just.  It  is  generous,  hos- 


HEROISM.  185 

pitable,  temperate,  scornful  of  petty  calculations  and 
scornful  of  being  scorned.  It  persists;  it  is  of  an 
undaunted  boldness  and  of  a  fortitude  not  to  be 
wearied  out.  Its  jest  is  the  littleness  of  common  life. 
That  false  prudence  which  dotes  on  health  and 
wealth  is  the  foil,  the  butt  and  merriment  of  heroism. 
Heroism,  like  Plotinus,  is  almost  ashamed  of  its 
body.  What  shall  it  say  then  to  the  sugar-plums  and 
cats'-cradles,  to  the  toilet,  compliments,  quarrels, 
cards  and  custard,  which  rack  the  wit  of  all  human 
society?  What  joys  has  kind  nature  provided  for  us 
dear  creatures !  There  seems  to  be  no  interval  be 
tween  greatness  and  meanness.  When  the  spirit  is 
not  master  of  the  world,  then  it  is  its  dupe.  Yet  the 
little  man  takes  the  great  hoax  so  innocently,  works 
in  it  so  headlong  and  believing,  is  born  red,  and  dies 
gray,  arranging  his  toilet,  attending  on  his  own 
health,  laying  traps  for  sweet  food  and  strong  wine, 
setting  his  heart  on  a  horse  or  a  rifle,  made  happy 
with  a  little  gossip  or  a  little  praise,  that  the  great 
soul  cannot  choose  but  laugh  at  such  earnest  non 
sense.  "  Indeed,  these  humble  considerations  make 
me  out  of  love  with  greatness.  What  a  disgrace  is  it 
to  me  to  take  note  how  many  pairs  of  silk  stockings 
thou  hast,  namely,  these  and  those  that  were  the 
peach-colored  ones ;  or  to  bear  the  inventory  of  thy 
shirts,  as  one  for  superfluity,  and  one  other  for  use." 
Citizens,  thinking  after  the  laws  of  arithmetic,  con 
sider  the  inconvenience  of  receiving  strangers  at 
their  fireside,  reckon  narrowly  the  loss  of  time 
and  the  unusual  display :  the  soul  of  a  better 
quality  thrusts  back  the  unseasonable  economy  into 


1 86  HEROISM. 

the  vaults  of  life,  and  says,  I  will  obey  the  God,  and 
the  sacrifice  and  the  fire  he  will  provide.  Ibn  Han- 
kal,  the  Arabian  geographer,  describes  a  heroic  ex 
treme  in  the  hospitality  of  Sogd,  in  Bukharia. 
"  When  I  was  in  Sogd  I  saw  a  great  building,  like  a 
palace,  the  gates  of  which  were  open  and  fixed  back 
to  the  wall  with  large  nails.  I  asked  the  reason,  and 
was  told  that  the  house  had  not  been  shut,  night  or 
day,  for  a  hundred  years.  Strangers  may  present 
themselves  at  any  hour  and  in  wl^tever  number ;  the 
master  has  amply  provided  for  the  reception  of  the 
men  and  their  animals  and  is  never  happier  than 
when  they  tarry  for  some  time.  Nothing  of  the  kind 
have  I  seen  in  any  other  country."  The  magnani 
mous  know  very  well  that  they  who  give  time,  or 
money,  or  shelter,  to  the  stranger, — so  it  be  done 
for  love  and  not  for  ostentation,  —  do,  as  it  were,  put 
God  under  obligation  to  them,  so  perfect  are  the 
compensations  of  the  universe.  In  some  way  the 
time  they  seem  to  lose  is  redeemed  and  the  pains 
they  seem  to  take  remunerate  themselves.  These 
men  fan  the  flame  of  human  love  and  raise  the 
standard  of  civil  virtue  among  mankind.  But  hospi 
tality  must  be  for  service  and  not  for  show,  or  it  pulls 
down  the  host.  The  brave  soul  rates  itself  too  high 
to  value  itself  by  the  splendor  of  its  table  and  dra 
peries.  It  gives  what  it  hath,  and  all  it  hath,  but  its 
own  majesty  can  lend  a  better  grace  to  bannocks  and 
fair  water  than  belong  to  city  feasts. 

The  temperance  of  the  hero  proceeds  from  the 
same  wish  to  do  no  dishonor  to  the  worthiness  he 
has.  But  he  loves  it  for  its  elegancy,  not  for  its 


HEROISM.  187 

austerity.  It  seems  not  worth  his  while  to  be  sol 
emn  and  denounce  with  bitterness  flesh-eating  or 
wine-drinking,  the  use  of  tobacco,  or  opium,  or  tea, 
or  silk,  or  gold.  A  great  man  scarcely  knows  how  he 
dines,  how  he  dresses,  but  without  railing  or  pre 
cision  his  living  is  natural  and  poetic.  John  Eliot, 
the  Indian  Apostle,  drank  water,  and  said  of  wine, 
"It  is  a  noble,  generous  liquor  and  we  should  be 
humbly  thankful  for  it,  but,  as  I  remember,  water  was 
made  before  it."  Better  still  is  the  temperance  of 
King  David,  who  poured  out  on  the  ground  unto  the 
Lord  the  water  which  three  of  his  warriors  had 
brought  him  to  drink,  at  the  peril  of  their  lives. 

It  is  told  of  Brutus,  that  when  he  fell  on  his  sword 
after  the  battle  of  Philippi,  he  quoted  a  line  of 
Euripides,  "O  Virtue!  I  have  followed  thee  through 
life,  and  I  find  thee  at  last  but  a  shade."  I  doubt  not 
the  hero  is  slandered  by  this  report.  The  heroic 
soul  does  not  sell  its  justice  and  its  nobleness.  It 
does  not  ask  to  dine  nicely  and  to  sleep  warm.  The 
essence  of  greatness  is  the  perception  that  virtue  is 
enough.  Poverty  is  its  ornament.  Plenty  does  not 
need  it,  and  can  very  well  abide  its  loss. 

But  that  which  takes  my  fancy  most  in  the  heroic 
class,  is  the  good-humor  and  hilarity  they  exhibit.  It 
is  a  height  to  which  common  duty  can  very  well 
attain,  to  suffer  and  to  dare  with  solemnity.  But 
these  rare  souls  set  opinion,  success,  and  life  at  so 
cheap  a  rate  that  they  will  not  soothe  their  enemies 
by,  petitions,  or  the  show  of  sorrow,  but  wear  their 
own  habitual  greatness.  Scipio,  charged  with  pecu 
lation,  refuses  to  do  himself  so  great  a  disgrace  as  to 


i88  HEROISM. 

wait  for  justification,  though  he  had  the  scroll  of  his 
accounts  in  his  hands,  but  tears  it  to  pieces  before 
the  tribunes.  Socrates's  condemnation  of  himself  to 
be  maintained  in  all  honor  in  the  Prytaneum,  during 
his  life,  and  Sir  Thomas  More's  playfulness  at  the 
scaffold,  are  of  the  same  strain.  In  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher's  "  Sea  Voyage,"  Juletta  tells  the  stout  cap 
tain  and  his  company,  — 

Jul.    Why,  slaves,  't  is  in  our  power  to  hang  ye. 

Master.  Very  likely, 

Tis  in  our  powers,  then,  to  be  hanged,  and  scorn  ye. 

These  replies  are  sound  and  whole.  Sport  is  the 
bloom  and  glow  of  a  perfect  health.  The  great  will 
not  condescend  to  take  any  thing  seriously ;  all  must 
be  as  gay  as  the  song  of  a  canary,  though  it  were  the 
building  of  cities  or  the  eradication  of  old  and  foolish 
churches  and  nations  which  have  cumbered  the  earth 
long  thousands  of  years.  Simple  hearts  put  all  the 
history  and  customs  of  this  world  behind  them,  and 
play  their  own  play  in  innocent  defiance  of  the  Blue- 
Laws  of  the  world  ;  and  such  would  appear,  could  we 
see  the  human  race  assembled  in  vision,  like  little 
children  frolicking  together,  though  to  the  eyes  of 
mankind  at  large  they  wear  a  stately  and  solemn 
garb  of  works  and  influences. 

The  interest  these  fine  stories  have  for  us,  the 
power  of  a. romance  over  the  boy  who  grasps  the 
forbidden  book  under  his  bench  at  school,  our  de 
light  in  the  hero,  is  the  main  fact  to  our  purpose. 
All  these  great  and  transcendent  properties  are  ours. 
If  we  dilate  in  beholding  the  Greek  energy,  the 
Roman  pride,  it  is  that  we  are  already  domesticating 


HEROISM.  189 

the  same  sentiment.  Let  us  find  room  for  this  great 
guest  in  our  small  houses.  The  first  step  of  worthi 
ness  will  be  to  disabuse  us  of  our  superstitious  asso 
ciations  with  places  and  times,  with  number  and  size. 
Why  should  these  words,  Athenian,  Roman,  Asia 
and  England,  so  tingle  in  the  ear?  Let  us  feel  that 
where  the  heart  is,  there  the  muses,  there  the  gods 
sojourn,  and  not  in  any  geography  of  fame.  Massa 
chusetts,  Connecticut  River  and  Boston  Bay  you 
think  paltry  places,  and  the  ear  loves  names  of  foreign 
and  classic  topography.  But  here  we  are :  —  that  is  a 
great  fact,  and,  if  we  will  tarry  a  little,  we  may  come  to 
learn  that  here  is  best.  See  to  it  only  that  thyself  is 
here,  —  and  art  and  nature,  hope  and  dread,  friends, 
angels  and  the  Supreme  Being  shall  not  be  absent 
from  the  chamber  where  thou  sittest.  Epaminondas, 
brave  and  affectionate,  does  not  seem  to  us  to  need 
Olympus  to  die  upon,  nor  the  Syrian  sunshine.  He 
lies  very  well  where  he  is.  The  Jerseys  were  hand 
some  ground  enough  for  Washington  to  tread,  and 
London  streets  for  the  feet  of  Milton.  A  great  man 
illustrates  his  place,  makes  his  climate  genial  in  the 
imagination  of  men,  and  its  air  the  beloved  element 
of  all  delicate  spirits.  That  country  is  the  fairest 
which  is  inhabited  by  the  noblest  minds.  The  pic 
tures  which  fill  the  imagination  in  reading  the  actions 
of  Pericles,  Xenophon,  Columbus,  Bayard,  Sidney, 
Hampden,  teach  us  how  needlessly  mean  our  life  is ; 
that  we,  by  the  depth  of  our  living,  should  deck  it 
with  more  than  regal  or  national  splendor,  and  act  on 
principles  that  should  interest  man  and  nature  in  the 
length  of  our  days. 


190  HEROISM. 

We  have  seen  or  heard  of  many  extraordinary 
young  men  who  never  ripened,  or  whose  performance 
in  actual  life  was  not  extraordinary.  When  we  see 
their  air  and  mien,  when  we  hear  them  speak  of 
society,  of  books,  of  religion,  we  admire  their  supe 
riority  ;  they  seem  to  throw  contempt  on  the  whole 
state  of  the  world ;  theirs  is  the  tone  of  a  youthful 
giant  who  is  sent  to  work  revolutions.  But  they 
enter  an  active  profession  and  the  forming  Colossus 
shrinks  to  the  common  size  of  man.  The  magic 
they  used  was  the  ideal  tendencies,  which  always 
makes  the  Actual  ridiculous ;  but  the  tough  world 
has  its  revenge  the  moment  they  put  their  horses  of 
the  sun  to  plough  in  its  furrow.  They  found  no  ex 
ample  and  no  companion,  and  their  heart  fainted. 
What  then?  The  lesson  they  gave  in  their  first 
aspirations  is  yet  true  ;  and  a  better  valor  and  a  purer 
truth  shall  one  day  execute  their  will  and  put  the 
world  to  shame.  Or  why  should  a  woman  liken  her 
self  to  any  historical  woman,  and  think,  because 
Sappho,  or  Sevigne',  or  De  Stael,  or  the  cloistered 
souls  who  have  had  genius  and  cultivation  do  not 
satisfy  the  imagination  and  the  serene  Themis,  none 
can,  —  certainly  not  she.  Why  not?  She  has  a  new 
and  unattempted  problem  to  solve,  perchance  that  of 
the  happiest  nature  that  ever  bloomed.  Let  the 
maiden,  with  erect  soul,  walk  serenely  on  her  way, 
accept  the  hint  of  each  new  experience,  try  in  turn  all 
the  gifts  God  offers  her  that  she  may  learn  the  power 
and  the  charm  that  like  a  new  dawn  radiating  of  the 
deep  of  space,  her  new-born  being  is.  The  fair  girl 
who  repels  interference  by  a  decided  and  proud 


HEROISM.  191 

choice  of  influences,  so  careless  of  pleasing,  so  wilful 
and  lofty,  inspires  every  beholder  with  somewhat  of 
her  own  nobleness.  The  silent  heart  encourages 
her ;  O  friend,  never  strike  sail  to  a  fear.  Come  into 
port  greatly,  or  sail  with  God  the  seas.  Not  in  vain 
you  live,  for  every  passing  eye  is  cheered  and  refined 
by  the  vision. 

The  characteristic  of  genuine  heroism  is  its  persist 
ency.  All  men  have  wandering  impulses,  fits  and 
starts  of  generosity.  But  when  you  have  resolved 
to  be  great,  abide  by  yourself,  and  do  not  weakly 
try  to  reconcile  yourself  with  the  world.  The  heroic 
cannot  be  the  common,  nor  the  common  the  heroic. 
Yet  we  have  the  weakness  to  expect  the  sympathy 
of  people  in  those  actions  whose  excellence  is  that 
they  outrun  sympathy  and  appeal  to  a  tardy  justice. 
If  you  would  serve  your  brother,  because  it  is  fit  for 
you  to  serve  him,  do  not  take  back  your  words  when 
you  find  that  prudent  people  do  not  commend  you. 
Be  true  to  your  own  act,  and  congratulate  yourself 
if  you  have  done  something  strange  and  extrava 
gant  and  broken  the  monotony  of  a  decorous  age. 
It  was  a  high  counsel  that  I  once  heard  given  to  a 
young  person,  "Always  do  what  you  are  afraid  to 
do."  A  simple  manly  character  need  never  make 
an  apology,  but  should  regard  its  past  action  with 
the  calmness  of  Phocion,  when  he  admitted  that  the 
event  of  the  battle  was  happy,  yet  did  not  regret  his 
dissuasion  from  the  battle. 

There  is  no  weakness  or  exposure  for  which  we 
cannot  find  consolation  in  the  thought,  —  this  is  a 
part  of  my  constitution,  part  of  my  relation  and  office 


192  HEROISM. 

to  my  fellow-creature.  Has  nature  covenanted  with 
me  that  I  should  never  appear  to  disadvantage,  never 
make  a  ridiculous  figure  ?  Let  us  be  generous  of  our 
dignity  as  well  as  of  our  money.  Greatness  once 
and  for  ever  has  done  with  opinion.  We  tell  our 
charities,  not  because  we  wish  to  be  praised  for  them, 
not  because  we  think  they  have  great  merit,  but  for 
our  justification.  It  is  a  capital  blunder;  as  you  dis 
cover  when  another  man  recites  his  charities. 

To  speak  the  truth,  even  with  some  austerity,  to 
live  with  some  rigor  of  temperance,  or  some  ex 
tremes  of  generosity,  seems  to  be  an  asceticism 
which  common  good  nature  would  appoint  to  those 
who  are  at  ease  and  in  plenty,  in  sign  that  they  feel 
a  brotherhood  with  the  great  multitude  of  suffering 
men.  And  not  only  need  we  breathe  and  exercise 
the  soul  by  assuming  the  penalties  of  abstinence,  of 
debt,  of  solitude,  of  unpopularity,  but  it  behoves 
the  wise  man  to  look  with  a  bold  teye  into  those 
rarer  dangers  which  sometimes  invade  men,  and  to 
familiarize  himself  with  disgusting  forms  of  disease, 
with  sounds  of  execration,  and  the  vision  of  violent 
death. 

Times  of  heroism  are  generally  times  of  terror, 
but  the  day  never  shines  in  which  this  element  may 
not  work.  The  circumstances  of  man,  we  say,  are 
historically  somewhat  better  in  this  country  and  at 
this  hour  than  perhaps  ever  before.  More  freedom 
exists  for  culture.  It  will  not  now  run  against  an 
axe  at  the  first  step  out  of  the  beaten  track  of  opin 
ion.  But  whoso  is  heroic  will  always  find  crises  to 
try  his  edge.  Human  virtue  demands  her  champions 


HEROISM.  193 

and  martyrs,  and  the  trial  of  persecution  always  pro 
ceeds.  It  is  but  the  other  day  that  the  brave  Love- 
joy  gave  his  breast  to  the  bullets  of  a  mob,  for  the 
rights  of  free  speech  and  opinion,  and  died  when  it 
was  better  not  to  live. 

I  see  not  any  road  of  perfect  peace  which  a  man 
can  walk,  but  to  take  counsel  of  his  own  bosom. 
Let  him  quit  too  much  association,  let  him  go  home 
much,  and  stablish  himself  in  those  courses  he  ap 
proves.  The  unremitting  retention  of  simple  and 
high  sentiments  in  obscure  duties  is  hardening  the 
character  to  that  temper  which  will  work  with  honor, 
if  need  be  in  the  tumult,  or  on  the  scaffold.  What 
ever  outrages  have  happened  to  men  may  befall  a 
man  again :  and  very  easily  in  a  republic,  if  there 
appear  any  signs  of  a  decay  of  religion.  Coarse  slan 
der,  fire,  tar  and  feathers  and  the  gibbet,  the  youth 
may  freely  bring  home  to  his  mind  and  with  what 
sweetness  of  temper  he  can,  and  inquire  how  fast  he 
can  fix  his  sense  of  duty,  braving  such  penalties, 
whenever  it  may  please  the  next  newspaper  and  a 
sufficient  number  of  his  neighbors  to  pronounce  his 
opinions  incendiary. 

It  may  calm  the  apprehension  *of  calamity  in  the 
most  susceptible  heart  to  see  how  quick  a  bound 
Nature  has  set  to  the  utmost  infliction  of  malice. 
We  rapidly  approach  a  brink  over  which  no  enemy 
can  follow  us. 

Let  them  rave : 
Thou  art  quiet  in  thy  grave. 

In  the  gloom  of  our  ignorance  of  what  shall  be,  in 


194  HEROISM. 

the  hour  when  we  are  deaf  to  the  higher  voices, 
who  does  not  envy  them  who  have  seen  safely  to  an 
end  their  manful  endeavor?  Who  that  sees  the 
meanness  of  our  politics  but  inly  congratulates  Wash 
ington  that  he  is  long  already  wrapped  in  his  shroud, 
and  for  ever  safe ;  that  he  was  laid  sweet  in  his 
grave,  the  hope  of  humanity  not  yet  subjugated  in 
him?  Who  does  not  sometimes  envy  the  good  and 
brave  who  are  no  more  to  suffer  from  the  tumults 
of  the  natural  world,  and  await  with  curious  com 
placency  the  speedy  term  of  his  own  conversation 
with  finite  nature?  And  yet  the  love  that  will  be 
annihilated  sooner  than  treacherous  has  already  made 
death  impossible,  and  affirms  itself  no  mortal  but  a 
native  of  the  deeps  of  absolute  and  inextinguishable 
being. 


ESSAY    IX. 

THE   OVER-SOUL. 

But  souls  that  of  his  own  good  life  partake, 
He  loves  as  his  own  self;  dear  as  his  eye 
They  are  to  Him:  He'll  never  them  forsake  : 
When  they  shall  die,  then  God  himself  shall  die: 
They  live,  they  live  in  blest  eternity. 

—  Henry  More. 

THERE  is  a  difference  between  one  and  another 
hour  of  life  in  their  authority  and  subsequent  effect. 
Our  faith  comes  in  moments ;  our  vice  is  habitual. 
Yet  there  is  a  depth  in  those  brief  moments  which 
constrains  us  to  ascribe  more  reality  to  them  than  to 
all  other  experiences.  For  this  reason  the  argument 
which  is  always  forthcoming  to  silence  those  who 
conceive  extraordinary  hopes  of  man,  namely  the 
appeal  to  experience,  is  for  ever  invalid  and  vain.  A 
mightier  hope  abolishes  despair.  We  give  up  the 
past  to  the  objector,  and  yet  we  hope.  He  must 
explain  this  hope.  We  grant  that  human  life  is 
mean,  but  how  did  we  find  out  that  it  was  mean? 
What  is  the  ground  of  this  uneasiness  of  ours ;  of 
this  old  discontent?  What  is  the  universal  sense  of 
want  and  ignorance,  but  the  fine  innuendo  by  which 
the  great  soul  makes  its  enormous  claim?  Why  do 

195 


196  THE    OVER-SOUL. 

men  feel  that  the  natural  history  of  man  has  never 
been  written,  but  always  he  is  leaving  behind  what 
you  have  said  of  him,  and  it  becomes  old,  and  books 
of  metaphysics  worthless?  The  philosophy  of  six 
thousand  years  has  not  searched  the  chambers  and 
magazines  of  the  soul.  In  its  experiments  there  has 
always  remained,  in  the  last  analysis,  a  residuum  it 
could  not  resolve.  Man  is  a  stream  whose  source  is 
hidden.  Always  our  being  is  descending  into  us 
from  we  know  not  whence.  The  most  exact  calcula 
tor  has  no  prescience  that  somewhat  incalculable  may 
not  baulk  the  very  next  moment.  I  am  constrained 
every  moment  to  acknowledge  a  higher  origin  for 
events  than  the  will  I  call  mine. 

As  with  events,  so  is  it  with  thoughts.  When  I 
watch  that  flowing  river,  which,  out  of  regions  I  see 
not,  pours  for  a  season  its  streams  into  me,  —  I  see 
that  I  am  a  pensioner,  —  not  a  cause  but  a  surprised 
spectator  of  this  ethereal  water;  that  I  desire  and 
look  up  and  put  myself  in  the  attitude  of  reception, 
but  from  some  alien  energy  the  visions  come. 

The  Supreme  Critic  on  all  the  errors  of  the  past 
and  the  present,  and  the  only  prophet  of  that  which 
must  be,  is  that  great  nature  in  which  we  rest  as  the 
earth  lies  in  the  soft  arms  of  the  atmosphere ;  that 
Unity,  that  Over-soul,  within  which  every  man's  par 
ticular  being  is  contained  and  made  one  with  all 
other ;  that  common  heart  of  which  all  sincere  con 
versation  is  the  worship,  to  which  all  right  action  is 
submission ;  that  overpowering  reality  which  confutes 
our  tricks  and  talents,  and  constrains  every  one  to 
pass  for  what  he  is,  and  to  speak  from  his  character 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  197 

and  not  from  his  tongue,  and  which  evermore  tends 
to  pass  into  our  thought  and  hand  and  become  wis 
dom  and  virtue  and  power  and  beauty.  We  live  in 
succession,  in  division,  in  parts,  in  particles.  Mean 
time  within  man  is  the  soul  of  the  whole ;  the  wise 
silence ;  the  universal  beauty,  to  which  every  part 
and  particle  is  equally  related ;  the  eternal  ONE. 
And  this  deep  power  in  which  we  exist  and  whose 
beatitude  is  all  accessible  to  us,  is  not  only  self-suffic 
ing  and  perfect  in  every  hour,  but  the  act  of  seeing 
and  the  thing  seen,  the  seer  and  the  spectacle,  the 
subject  and  the  object,  are  one.  We  see  the  world 
piece  by  piece,  as  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  animal,  the 
tree ;  but  the  whole,  of  which  these  are  the  shining 
parts,  is  the  soul.  Only  by  the  vision  of  that  Wis 
dom  can  the  horoscope  of  the  ages  be  read,  and  by 
falling  back  on  our  better  thoughts,  by  yielding  to  the 
spirit  of  prophecy  which  is  innate  in  every  man  that 
we  can  know  what  it  saith.  Every  man's  words  who 
speaks  from  that  life  must  sound  vain  to  those  who 
do  not  dwell  in  the  same  thought  on  their  own  part. 
I  dare  not  speak  for  it.  My  words  do  not  carry  its 
august  sense ;  they  fall  short  and  cold.  Only  itself 
can  inspire  whom  it  will,  and  behold !  their  speech 
shall  be  lyrical,  and  sweet,  and  universal  as  the  rising 
of  the  wind.  Yet  I  desire,  even  by  profane  words,  if 
sacred  I  may  not  use,  to  indicate  the  heaven  of  this 
deity  and  to  report  what  hints  I  have  collected  of  the 
transcendent  simplicity  and  energy  of  the  Highest 
Law. 

If  we  consider  what  happens  in  conversation,  in 
reveries,  in  remorse,  in  times  of  passion,  in  surprises, 


198  THE    OVER-SOUL. 

in  the  instructions  of  dreams,  wherein  often  we  see 
ourselves  in  masquerade,  —  the  droll  disguises  only 
magnifying  and  enhancing  a  real  element  and  forcing 
it  on  our  distinct  notice,  — we  shall  catch  many  hints 
that  will  broaden  and  lighten  into  knowledge  of  the 
secret  of  nature.  All  goes  to  show  that  the  soul  in 
man  is  not  an  organ,  but  animates  and  exercises  all 
the  organs ;  is  not  a  function,  like  the  power  of 
memory,  of  calculation,  of  comparison,  —  but  uses 
these  as  hands  and  feet ;  is  not  a  faculty,  but  a  light ; 
is  not  the  intellect  or  the  will,  but  the  master  of  the 
intellect  and  the  will ;  —  is  the  vast  background  of 
our  being,  in  which  they  lie,  —  an  immensity  not  pos 
sessed  and  that  cannot  be  possessed.  From  within 
or  from  behind,  a  light  shines  through  us  upon  things 
and  makes  us  aware  that  we  are  nothing,  but  the 
light  is  all.  A  man  is  the  fa9ade  of  a  temple  wherein 
all  wisdom  and  all  good  abide.  What  we  commonly 
call  man,  the  eating,  drinking,  planting,  counting  man, 
does  not,  as  we  know  him,  represent  himself,  but  mis 
represents  himself.  Him  we  do  not  respect,  but  the 
soul,  whose  organ  he  is,  would  he  let  it  appear 
through  his  action,  would  make  our  knees  bend. 
When  it  breathes  through  his  intellect,  it  is  genius ; 
when  it  breathes  through  his  will,  it  is  virtue  ;  when 
it  flows  through  his  affection,  it  is  love.  And  the 
blindness  of  the  intellect  begins  when  it  would  be 
something  of  itself.  The  weakness  of  the  will  begins 
when  the  individual  would  be  something  of  himself. 
All  reform  aims  in  some  one  particular  to  let  the 
great  soul  have  its  way  through  us ;  in  other  words, 
to  engage  us  to  obey. 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  199 

Of  this  pure  nature  every  man  is  at  some  time  sen 
sible.  Language  cannot  paint  it  with  his  colors.  It 
is  too  subtle.  It  is  undefinable,  unmeasurable ;  but 
we  know  that  it  pervades  and  contains  us.  We 
know  that  all  spiritual  being  is  in  man.  A  wise  old 
proverb  says,  "  God  comes  to  see  us  without  bell :  " 
that  is,  as  there  is  no  screen  or  ceiling  between  our 
heads  and  the  infinite  heavens,  so  is  there  no  bar  or 
wall  in  the  soul,  where  man,  the  effect,  ceases,  and 
God,  the  cause,  begins.  The  walls  are  taken  away. 
We  lie  open  on  one  side  to  the  deeps  of  spiritual 
nature,  to  all  the  attributes  of  God.  Justice  we  see 
and  know,  Love,  Freedom,  Power.  These  natures 
no  man  ever  got  above,  but  always  they  tower  over 
us,  and  most  in  the  moment  when  our  interests 
tempt  us  to  wound  them. 

The  sovereignty  of  this  nature  whereof  we  speak  is 
made  known  by  its  independency  of  those  limitations 
which  circumscribe  us  on  every  hand.  The  soul  cir- 
cumscribeth  all  things.  As  I  have  said,  it  contradicts 
all  experience.  In  like  manner  it  abolishes  time  and 
space.  The  influence  of  the  senses  has  in  most  men 
overpowered  the  mind  to  that  degree  that  the  walls 
of  time  and  space  have  come  to  look  solid,  real  and 
insurmountable ;  and  to  speak  with  levity  of  these 
limits  is,  in  the  world,  the  sign  of  insanity.  Yet 
time  and  space  are  but  inverse  measures  of  the  force 
of  the  soul.  A  man  is  capable  of  abolishing  them 
both.  The  spirit  sports  with  time  — 

Can  crowd  eternity  into  an  hour, 
Or  stretch  an  hour  to  eternity. 


200  THE    OVER-SOUL. 

We  are  often  made  to  feel  that  there  is  another 
youth  and  age  than  that  which  is  measured  from  the 
year  of  our  natural  birth.  Some  thoughts  always 
find  us  young,  and  keep  us  so.  Such  a  thought  is 
the  love  of  the  universal  and  eternal  beauty.  Every 
man  parts  from  that  contemplation  with  the  feeling 
that  it  rather  belongs  to  ages  than  to  mortal  life. 
The  least  activity  of  the  intellectual  powers  redeems 
us  in  a  degree  from  the  influences  of  time.  In  sick 
ness,  in  languor,  give  us  a  strain  of  poetry  or  a  pro 
found  sentence,  and  we  are  refreshed ;  or  produce  a 
volume  of  Plato  or  Shakspeare,  or  remind  us  of  their 
names,  and  instantly  we  come  into  a  feeling  of 
longevity.  See  how  the  deep  divine  thought  de 
molishes  centuries  and  millenniums,  and  makes  it 
self  present  through  all  ages.  Is  the  teaching  of 
Christ  less  effective  now  than  it  was  when  first 
his  mouth  was  opened?  The  emphasis  of  facts  and 
persons  to  my  soul  has  nothing  to  do  with  time. 
And  so  always  the  souPs  scale  is  one ;  the  scale  of 
the  senses  and  the  understanding  is  another.  Before 
the  great  revelations  of  the  soul,  Time,  Space  and 
Nature  shrink  away.  In  common  speech  we  refer  all 
things  to  time,  as  we  habitually  refer  the  immensely 
sundered  stars  to  one  concave  sphere.  And  so  we 
say  that  the  Judgment  is  distant  or  near,  that  the 
Millennium  approaches,  that  a  day  of  certain  politi 
cal,  moral,  social  reforms  is  at  hand,  and  the  like, 
when  we  mean  that  in  the  nature  of  things  one  of 
the  facts  we  contemplate  is  external  and  fugitive,  and 
the  other  is  permanent  and  connate  with  the  soul. 
The  things  we  now  esteem  fixed  shall,  one  by  one, 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  2O* 

detach  themselves  like  ripe  fruit  from  our  experience, 
and  fall.  The  wind  shall  blow  them  none  knows 
whither.  The  landscape,  the  figures,  Boston,  Lon 
don,  are  facts  as  fugitive  as  any  institution  past,  or 
any  whiff  of  mist  or  smoke,  and  so  is  society,  and  so 
is  the  world.  The  soul  looketh  steadily  forwards, 
creating  a  world  alway  before  her,  leaving  worlds 
alway  behind  her.  She  has  no  dates,  nor  rites,  nor 
persons,  nor  specialties,  nor  men.  The  soul  knows 
only  the  soul ;  all  else  is  idle  weeds  for  her  wearing. 

After  its  own  law  and  not  by  arithmetic  is  the  rate 
of  its  progress  to  be  computed.  The  soul's  advances 
are  not  made  by  gradation,  such  as  can  be  repre 
sented  by  motion  in  a  straight  line,  but  rather  by  as 
cension  of  state,  such  as  can  be  represented  by  meta 
morphosis,  —  from  the  egg  to  the  worm,  from  the 
worm  to  the  fly.  The  growths  of  genius  are  of  a  cer 
tain  total  character,  that  does  not  advance  the  elect 
individual  first  over  John,  then  Adam,  then  Richard, 
and  give  to  each  the  pain  of  discovered  inferiority, 
but  by  every  throe  of  growth  the  man  expands  there 
where  he  works,  passing,  at  each  pulsation,  classes, 
populations,  of  men.  With  each  divine  impulse  the 
mind  rends  the  thin  rinds  of  the  visible  and  finite, 
and  comes  out  into  eternity,  and  inspires  and  expires 
its  air.  It  converses  with  truths  that  have  always 
been  spoken  in  the  world,  and  becomes  conscious  of 
a  closer  sympathy  with  Zeno  and  Arrian  than  with 
persons  in  the  house. 

This  is  the  law  of  moral  and  of  mental  gain.  The 
simple  rise  as  by  specific  levity  not  into  a  particular 
virtue,  but  into  the  region  of  all  the  virtues.  They 


202  THE    OVER-SOUL. 

are  in  the  spirit  which  contains  them  all.  The  soul 
is  superior  to  all  the  particulars  of  merit.  The  soul 
requires  purity,  but  purity  is  not  it ;  requires  justice, 
but  justice  is  not  that;  requires  beneficence,  but  is 
somewhat  better :  so  that  there  is  a  kind  of  descent 
and  accommodation  felt  when  we  leave  speaking  of 
moral  nature  to  urge  a  virtue  which  it  enjoins.  For, 
to  the  soul  in  her  pure  action  all  the  virtues  are 
natural,  and  not  painfully  acquired.  Speak  to  his 
heart,  and  the  man  becomes  suddenly  virtuous. 

Within  the  same  sentiment  is  the  germ  of  intel 
lectual  growth,  which  obeys  the  same  law.  Those 
who  are  capable  of  humility,  of  justice,  of  love,  of 
aspiration,  are  already  on  a  platform  that  commands 
the  sciences  and  arts,  speech  and  poetry,  action  and 
grace.  For  whoso  dwells  in  this  moral  beatitude 
does  already  anticipate  those  special  powers  which 
men  prize  so  highly ;  just  as  love  does  justice  to  all 
the  gifts  of  the  object  beloved.  The  lover  has  no 
talent,  no  skill,  which  passes  for  quite  nothing  with 
his  enamored  maiden,  however  little  she  may  possess 
of  related  faculty ;  and  the  heart  which  abandons  it 
self  to  the  Supreme  Mind  finds  itself  related  to  all  its 
works,  and  will  travel  a  royal  road  to  particular 
knowledges  and  powers.  For  in  ascending  to  this 
primary  and  aboriginal  sentiment  we  have  come 
from  our  remote  station  on  the  circumference  in 
stantaneously  to  the  centre  of  the  world,  where,  as  in 
the  closet  of  God,  we  see  causes,  and  anticipate  the 
universe,  which  is  but  a  slow  effect. 

One  mode  of  the  divine  teaching  is  the  incarna 
tion  of  the  spirit  in  a  form,  —  in  forms,  like  my  own. 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  203 

I  live  in  society;  with  persons  who  answer  to 
thoughts  in  my  own  mind,  or  outwardly  express  a 
certain  obedience  to  the  great  instincts  to  which  I 
live.  I  see  its  presence  to  them.  I  am  certified  of  a 
common  nature ;  and  so  these  other  souls,  these 
separated  selves,  draw  me  as  nothing  else  can.  They 
stir  in  me  the  new  emotions  we  call  passion ;  of 
love,  hatred,  fear,  admiration,  pity;  thence  come 
conversation,  competition,  persuasion,  cities  and 
war.  Persons  are  supplementary  to  the  primary 
teaching  of  the  soul.  In  youth  we  'are  mad  for  per 
sons.  Childhood  and  youth  see  all  the  world  in 
them.  But  the  larger  experience  of  man  discovers 
the  identical  nature  appearing  through  them  all.  Per 
sons  themselves  acquaint  us  with  the  impersonal. 
In  all  conversation  between  two  persons  tacit  ref 
erence  is  made,  as  to  a  third  party,  to  a  common 
nature.  That  third  party  or  common  nature  is  not 
social ;  it  is  impersonal ;  is  God.  And  so  in  groups 
where  debate  is  earnest,  and  especially  on  great 
questions  of  thought,  the  company  become  aware 
of  their  unity ;  aware  that  the  thought  rises  to  an 
equal  height  in  all  bosoms,  that  all  have  a  spiritual 
property  in  what  was  said,  as  well  as  the  sayer. 
They  all  wax  wiser  than  they  were.  It  arches  over 
them  like  a  temple,  this  unity  of  thought  in  which 
every  heart  beats  with  nobler  sense  of  power 
and  duty,  and  thinks  and  acts  with  unusual  solem 
nity.  All  are  conscious  of  attaining  to  a  higher  self- 
possession.  It  shines  for  all.  There  is  a  certain 
wisdom  of  humanity  which  is  common  to  the  great 
est  men  with  the  lowest,  and  which  our  ordinary  edu- 


204  THE    OVER-SOUL. 

cation  often  labors  to  silence  and  obstruct.  The 
mind  is  one,  and  the  best  minds,  who  love  truth  for 
its  own  sake,  think  much  less  of  property  in  truth. 
Thankfully  they  accept  it  everywhere,  and  do  not 
label  or  stamp  it  with  any  man's  name,  for  it  is 
theirs  long  beforehand.  It  is  theirs  from  eternity. 
The  learned  and  the  studious  of  thought  have  no 
monopoly  of  wisdom.  Their  violence  of  direction  in 
some  degree  disqualifies  them  to  think  truly.  We 
owe  many  valuable  observations  to  people  who  are 
not  very  acute  or  profound,  and  who  say  the  thing 
without  effort  which  we  want  and  have  long  been 
hunting  in  vain.  The  action  of  the  soul  is  oftener  in 
that  which  is  felt  and  left  unsaid  than  in  that  which 
is  said  in  any  conversation.  It  broods  over  every 
society,  and  they  unconsciously  seek  for  it  in  each 
other.  We  know  better  than  we  do.  We  do  not 
yet  possess  ourselves,  and  we  know  at  the  same 
time  that  we  are  much  more.  I  feel  the  same  truth 
how  often  in  my  trivial  conversation  with  my  neigh 
bors,  that  somewhat  higher  in  each  of  us  overlooks 
this  by-play,  and  Jove  nods  to  Jove  from  behind 
each  of  us. 

Men  descend  to  meet.  In  their  habitual  and  mean 
service  to  the  world,  for  which  they  forsake  their 
native  nobleness,  they  resemble  those  Arabian  sheiks 
who  dwell  in  mean  houses  and  affect  an  external 
poverty,  to  escape  the  rapacity  of  the  Pacha,  and  re 
serve  all  their  display  of  wealth  for  their  interior  and 
guarded  retirements. 

As  it  is  present  in  all  persons,  so  it  is  in  every 
period  of  life.  It  is  adult  already  in  the  infant  man. 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  205 

In  my  dealing  with  my  child,  my  Latin  and  Greek, 
my  accomplishments  and  my  money  stead  me  noth 
ing.  They  are  all  lost  on  him  :  but  as  much  soul  as 
I  have,  avails.  If  I  am  merely  wilful,  he  gives  me  a 
Rowland  for  an  Oliver,  sets  his  will  against  mine, 
one  for  one,  and  leaves  me,  if  I  please,  the  degrada 
tion  of  beating  him  by  my  superiority  of  strength. 
But  if  I  renounce  my  will  and  act  for  the  soul,  set 
ting  that  up  as  umpire  between  us  two,  out  of  his 
young  eyes  looks  the  same  soul ;  he  reveres  and 
loves  with  me. 

The  soul  is  the  perceiver  and  revealer  of  truth. 
We  know  truth  when  we  see  it,  let  skeptic  and 
scoffer  say  what  they  choose.  Foolish  people  ask 
you,  when  you  have  spoken  what  they  do  not  wish 
to  hear,  '  How  do  you  know  it  is  truth,  and  not  an 
error  of  your  own? '  We  know  truth  when  we  see  it, 
from  opinion,  as  we  know  when  we  are  awake  that 
we  are  awake.  It  was  a  grand  sentence  of  Emanuel 
Swedenborg,  which  would  alone  indicate  the  great 
ness  of  that  man's  perception, —  "  It  is  no  proof  of  a 
man's  understanding  to  be  able  to  affirm  whatever  he 
pleases ;  but  to  be  able  to  discern  that  what  is  true 
is  true,  and  that  what  is  false  is  false,  this  is  the 
mark  and  character  of  intelligence."  In  the  book  I 
read,  the  good  thought  returns  to  me,  as  every  truth 
will,  the  image  of  the  whole  soul.  To  the  bad 
thought  which  I  find  in  it,  the  same  soul  becomes  a 
discerning,  separating  sword,  and  lops  it  away.  We 
are  wiser  than  we  know.  If  we  will  not  interfere 
with  our  thought,  but  will  act  entirely,  or  see  how 
the  thing  stands  in  God,  we  know  the  particular 


206  THE    OVER-SOUL. 

thing,  and  every  thing,  and  every  man.  For  the 
Maker  of  all  things  and  all  persons  stands  behind  us 
and  casts  his  dread  omniscience  through  us  over 
things. 

But  beyond  this  recognition  of  its  own  in  particu 
lar  passages  of  the  individual's  experience,  it  also  re 
veals  truth.  And  here  we  should  seek  to  reinforce 
ourselves  by  its  very  presence,  and  to  speak  with  a 
worthier,  loftier  strain  of  that  advent.  For  the  souPs 
communication  of  truth  is  the  highest  event  in  nature, 
for  it  then  does  not  give  somewhat  from  itself,  but  it 
gives  itself,  or  passes  into  and  becomes  that  man 
whom  it  enlightens;  or,  in  proportion  to  that  truth 
he  receives,  it  takes  him  to  itself. 

We  distinguish  the  announcements  of  the  soul, 
its  manifestations  of  its  own  nature,  by  the  term 
Revelation.  These  are  always  attended  by  the 
emotion  of  the  sublime.  For  this  communication 
is  an  influx  of  the  Divine  mind  into  our  mind.  It 
is  an  ebb  of  the  individual  rivulet  before  the  flowing 
surges  of  the  sea  of  life.  Every  distinct  apprehen 
sion  of  this  central  commandment  agitates  men  with 
awe  and  delight.  A  thrill  passes  through  all  men 
at  the  reception  of  new  truth,  or  at  the  performance 
of  a  great  action,  which  comes  out  of  the  heart  of 
nature.  In  these  communications  the  power  to  see 
is  not  separated  from  the  will  to  do,  but  the  insight 
proceeds  from  obedience,  and  the  obedience  pro 
ceeds  from  a  joyful  perception.  Every  moment 
when  the  individual  feels  himself  invaded  by  it,  is 
memorable.  Always,  I  believe,  by  the  necessity  of 
our  constitution  a  certain  enthusiasm  attends  the 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  207 

individual's  consciousness  of  that  divine  presence. 
The  character  and  duration  of  this  enthusiasm  varies 
with  the  state  of  the  individual,  from  an  exstasy  and 
trance  and  prophetic  inspiration, — which  is  its  rarer 
appearance,  to  the  faintest  glow  of  virtuous  emotion, 
in  which  form  it  warms,  like  our  household  fires, 
all  the  families  and  associations  of  men,  and  makes 
society  possible.  A  certain  tendency  to  insanity  has 
always  attended  the  opening  of  the  religious  sense 
in  men,  as  if  "blasted  with  excess  of  light."  The 
trances  of  Socrates;  the  "union"  of  Plotinus ;  the 
vision  of  Porphyry  ;  the  conversion  of  Paul ;  the  aurora 
of  Behmen ;  the  convulsions  of  George  Fox  and  his 
Quakers  ;  the  illumination  of  Swedenborg,  are  of  this 
kind.  What  was  in  the  case  of  these  remarkable  per 
sons  a  ravishment,  has,  in  innumerable  instances  in 
common  life,  been  exhibited  in  less  striking  manner. 
Everywhere  the  history  of  religion  betrays  a  tendency 
to  enthusiasm.  The  rapture  of  the  Moravian  and 
Quietist;  the  opening  of  the  internal  sense  of  the 
Word,  in  the  language  of  the  New  Jerusalem  Church ; 
the  revival  of  the  Calvinistic  churches ;  the  experi 
ences  of  the  Methodists,  are  varying  forms  of  that 
shudder  of  awe  and  delight  with  which  the  individual 
soul  always  mingles  with  the  universal  soul. 

The  nature  of  these  revelations  is  always  the  same  ; 
they  are  perceptions  of  the  absolute  law.  They  are 
solutions  of  the  souPs  own  questions.  They  do  not 
answer  the  questions  which  the  understanding  asks. 
The  soul  answers  never  by  words,  but  by  the  thing 
itself  that  is  inquired  after. 

Revelation   is   the   disclosure   of    the    soul.      The 


208  THE  OVER-SOUL; 

popular  notion  of  a  revelation,  is,  that  it  is  a  telling 
of  fortunes.  In  past  oracles  of  the  soul  the  under 
standing  seeks  to  find  answers  to  sensual  questions, 
and  undertakes  to  tell  from  God  how  long  men  shall 
exist,  what  their  hands  shall  do  and  who  shall  be 
their  company,  adding  even  names  and  dates  and 
places.  But  we  must  pick  no  locks.  We  must  check 
this  low  curiosity.  An  answer  in  words  is  delusive ; 
it  is  really  no  answer  to  the  questions  you  ask.  Do 
not  require  a  description  of  the  countries  towards 
which  you  sail.  The  description  does  not  describe 
them  to  you,  and  to-morrow  you  arrive  there  and 
know  them  by  inhabiting  them.  Men  ask  of  the  im 
mortality  of  the  soul,  and  the  employments  of  heaven, 
and  the  state  of  the  sinner,  and  so  forth.  They  even 
dream  that  Jesus  has  left  replies  to  precisely  these 
interrogatories.  Never  a  moment  did  that  sublime 
spirit  speak  in  their  patois.  To  truth,  justice,  love, 
the  attributes  of  the  soul,  the  idea  of  immutableness 
is  essentially  associated.  Jesus,  living  in  these  moral 
sentiments,  heedless  of  sensual  fortunes,  heeding  only 
the  manifestations  of  these,  never  made  the  separa 
tion  of  the  idea  of  duration  from  the  essence  of  these 
attributes,  never  uttered  a  syllable  concerning  the 
duration  of  the  soul.  It  was  left  to  his  disciples  to 
sever  duration  from  the  moral  elements,  and  to  teach 
the  immortality  of  the  soul  as  a  doctrine,  and  main 
tain  it  by  evidences.  The  moment  the  doctrine  of 
the  immortality  is  separately  taught,  man  is  already 
fallen.  In  the  flowing  of  love,  in  the  adoration  of 
humility,  there  is  no  question  of  continuance.  No 
inspired  man  ever  asks  this  question  or  condescends 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  209 

to  these  evidences.  For  the  soul  is  true  to  itself,  and 
the  man  in  whom  it  is  shed  abroad  cannot  wander 
from  the  present,  which  is  infinite,  to  a  future  which 
would  be  finite. 

These  questions  which  we  lust  to  ask  about  the 
future  are  a  confession  of  sin.  God  has  no  answer 
for  them.  No  answer  in  words  can  reply  to  a  ques 
tion  of  things.  It  is  not  in  an  arbitrary  "  decree  of 
God,"  but  in  the  nature  of  man,  that  a  veil  shuts 
down  on  the  facts  of  to-morrow :  for  the  soul  will 
not  have  us  read  any  other  cipher  but  that  of  cause 
and  effect.  By  this  veil  which  curtains  events  it  in 
structs  the  children  of  men  to  live  in  to-day.  The 
only  mode  of  obtaining  an  answer  to  these  questions 
of  the  senses  is  to  forego  all  low  curiosity,  and,  ac 
cepting  the  tide  of  being  which  floats  us  into  the 
secret  of  nature,  work  and  live,  work  and  live,  and 
all  unawares  the  advancing  soul  has  built  and  forged 
for  itself  a  new  condition,  and  the  question  and  the 
answer  are  one. 

Thus  is  the  soul  the  perceiver  and  revealer  of 
truth.  By  the  same  fire,  serene,  impersonal,  per 
fect,  which  burns  until  it  shall  dissolve  all  things  into 
the  waves  and  surges  of  an  ocean  of  light,  —  we  see 
and  know  each  other,  and  what  spirit  each  is  of. 
Who  can  tell  the  grounds  of  his  knowledge  of  the 
character  of  the  several  individuals  in  his  circle  of 
friends?  No  man.  Yet  their  acts  and  words  do  not 
disappoint  him.  In  that  man,  though  he  knew  no  ill 
of  him,  he  put  no  trust.  In  that  other,  though  they 
had  seldom  met,  authentic  signs  had  yet  passed,  to 
signify  that  he  might  be  trusted  as  one  who  had  an 


210  THE    OVER-SOUL. 

interest  in  his  own  character.  We  know  each  other 
very  well,  —  which  of  us  has  been  just  to  himself  and 
whether  that  which  we  teach  or  behold  is  only  an 
aspiration  or  is  our  honest  effort  also. 

We  are  all  discerners  of  spirits.  That  diagnosis 
lies  aloft  in  our  life  or  unconscious  power,  not  in  the 
understanding.  The  whole  intercourse  of  society, 
its  trade,  its  religion,  its  friendships,  its  quarrels, 
—  is  one  wide  judicial  investigation  of  character. 
In  full  court,  or  in  small  committee,  or  confronted 
face  to  face,  accuser  and  accused,  men  offer  them 
selves  to  be  judged.  Against  their  will  they  exhibit 
those  decisive  trifles  by  which  character  is  read. 
But  who  judges?  and  what?  Not  our  understand 
ing.  We  do  not  read  them  by  learning  or  craft. 
No;  the  wisdom  of  the  wise  man  consists  herein, 
that  he  does  not  judge  them ;  he  lets  them  judge 
themselves  and  merely  reads  and  records  their  own 
verdict. 

By  virtue  of  this  inevitable  nature,  private  will  is 
overpowered,  and,  maugre  our  efforts-  or  our  imper 
fections,  your  genius  will  speak  from  you,  and  mine 
from  me.  That  which  we  are,  we  shall  teach,  not 
voluntarily  but  involuntarily.  Thoughts  come  into 
our  minds  through  avenues  which  we  never  left  open, 
and  thoughts  go  out  of  our  minds  through  ave 
nues  which  we  never  voluntarily  opened.  Char 
acter  teaches  over  our  head.  The  infallible  index  of 
true  progress  is  found  in  the  tone  the  man  takes. 
Neither  his  age,  nor  his  breeding,  nor  company, 
nor  books,  nor  actions,  nor  talents,  nor  all  together 
can  hinder  him  from  being  deferential  to  a  higher 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  21 1 

spirit  than  his  own.  If  he  have  not  found  his  home 
in  God,  his  manners,  his  forms  of  speech,  the  turn 
of  his  sentences,  the  build,  shall  I  say,  of  all  his 
opinions  will  involuntarily  confess  it,  let  him  brave 
it  out  how  he  will.  If  he  have  found  his  centre, 
the  Deity  will  shine  through  him,  through  all  the 
disguises  of  ignorance,  of  ungenial  temperament, 
of  unfavorable  circumstance.  The  tone  of  seeking 
is  one,  and  the  tone  of  having  is  another. 

The  great  distinction  between  teachers  sacred  or 
literary ;  between  poets  like  Herbert,  and  poets  like 
Pope ;  between  philosophers  like  Spinoza,  Kant  and 
Coleridge,  —  and  philosophers  like  Locke,  Paley, 
Mackintosh  and  Stewart;  between  men  of  the 
world  who  are  reckoned  accomplished  talkers,  and 
here  and  there  a  fervent  mystic,  prophesying  half- 
insane  under  the  infinitude  of  his  thought,  is  that 
one  class  speak  from  within,  or  from  experience,  as 
parties  and  possessors  of  the  fact;  and  the  other 
class  from  without,  as  spectators  merely,  or  perhaps 
as  acquainted  with  the  fact  on  the  evidence  of  third 
persons.  It  is  of  no  use  to  preach  to  me  from  with 
out.  I  can  do  that  too  easily. myself.  Jesus  speaks 
always  from  within,  and  in  a  degree  that  transcends 
all  others.  In  that  is  the  miracle.  That  includes 
the  miracle.  My  soul  believes  beforehand  that  it 
ought  so  to  be.  All  men  stand  continually  in  the 
expectation  of  the  appearance  of  such  a  teacher. 
But  if  a  man  do  not  speak  from  within  the  veil, 
where  the  word  is  one  with  that  it  tells  of,  let  him 
lowly  confess  it. 

The   same   Omniscience    flows   into   the   intellect 


212  THE    OVER-SOUL. 

and  makes  what  we  call  genius.  Much  of  the  wis 
dom  of  the  world  is  not  wisdom,  and  the  most 
illuminated  class  of  men  are  no  doubt  superior  to 
literary  fame,  and  are  not  writers.  Among  the 
multitude  of  scholars  and  authors  we  feel  no  hal 
lowing  presence ;  we  are  sensible  of  a  knack  and 
skill  rather  than  of  inspiration ;  they  have  a  light 
and  know  not  whence  it  comes  and  call  it  their 
own :  their  talent  is  some  exaggerated  faculty,  some 
overgrown  member,  so  that  their  strength  is  a  dis 
ease.  In  these  instances  the  intellectual  gifts  do 
not  make  the  impression  of  virtue,  but  almost  of 
vice ;  and  we  feel  that  a  man's  talents  stand  in  the 
way  of  his  advancement  in  truth.  But  genius  is 
religious.  It  is  a  larger  imbibing  of  the  common 
heart.  It  is  not  anomalous,  but  more  like  and  not 
less  like  other  men.  There  is  in  all  great  poets  a 
wisdom  of  humanity  which  is  superior  to  any  tal 
ents  they  exercise.  The  author,  the  wit,  the  par 
tisan,  the  fine  gentleman,  does  not  take  place  of  the 
man.  Humanity  shines  in  Homer,  in  Chaucer,  in 
Spenser,  in  Shakspeare,  in  Milton.  They  are  con 
tent  with  truth.  They  use  the  positive  degree. 
They  seem  frigid  and  phlegmatic  to  those  who  have 
been  spiced  with  the  frantic  passion  and  violent 
coloring  of  inferior  but  popular  writers.  For,  they 
are  poets  by  the  free  course  which  they  allow  to  the 
informing  soul,  which  through  their  eyes  beholdeth 
again  and  blesses  the  things  which  it  hath  made. 
The  soul  is  superior  to  its  knowledge,  wiser  than 
any  of  its  works.  The  great  poet  makes  us  feel  our 
own  wealth,  and  then  we  think  less  of  his  com- 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  213 

positions.  His  greatest  communication  to  our  mind 
is  to  teach  us  to  despise  all  he  has  done.  Shakspeare 
carries  us  to  such  a  lofty  strain  of  intelligent  activ 
ity  as  to  suggest  a  wealth  which  beggars  his  own ; 
and  we  then  feel  that  the  splendid  works  which  he 
has  created,  and  which  in  other  hours  we  extol  as  a 
sort  of  self-existent  poetry,  take  no  stronger  hold 
of  real  nature  than  the  shadow  of  a  passing  trav 
eller  on  the  rock.  The  inspiration  which  uttered 
itself  in  Hamlet  and  Lear  could  utter  things  as  good 
from  day  to  day  for  ever.  Why  then  should  I  make 
account  of  Hamlet  and  Lear,  as  if  we  had  not  the 
soul  from  which  they  fell  as  syllables  from  the 
tongue  r 

This  energy  does  not  descend  into  individual  life 
on  any  other  condition  than  entire  possession.  It 
comes  to  the  lowly  and  simple ;  it  comes  to  whom 
soever  will  put  off  what  is  foreign  and  proud ;  it 
comes  as  insight ;  it  comes  as  serenity  and  gran 
deur.  When  we  see  those  whom  it  inhabits,  we  are 
apprised  of  new  degrees  of  greatness.  From  that 
inspiration  the  man  comes  back  with  a  changed 
tone.  He  does  not  talk  with  men  with  an  eye  to 
their  opinion.  He  tries  them.  It  requires  of  us  to 
be  plain  and  true.  The  vain  traveller  attempts 
to  embellish  his  life  by  quoting  my  Lord  and  the 
Prince  and  the  Countess,  who  thus  said  or  did  to 
him.  The  ambitious  vulgar  show  you  their  spoons 
and  brooches  and  rings,  and  preserve  their  cards 
and  compliments.  The  more  cultivated,  in  their 
account  of  their  own  experience,  cull  out  the  pleas 
ing,  poetic  circumstance ;  the  visit  to  Rome,  the 


214  THE    OVER-SOUL. 

man  of  genius  they  saw ;  the  brilliant  friend  they 
know ;  still  further  on  perhaps  the  gorgeous  land 
scape,  the  mountain  lights,  the  mountain  thoughts 
they  enjoyed  yesterday,  —  and  so  seek  to  throw  a 
romantic  color  over  their  life.  But  the  soul  that 
ascendeth  to  worship  the  great  God  is  plain  and  true  ; 
has  no  rose  color ;  no  fine  friends ;  no  chivalry ;  no 
adventures  ;  does  not  want  admiration  ;  dwells  in  the 
hour  that  now  is,  in  the  earnest  experience  of  the 
common  day,  —  by  reason  of  the  present  moment 
and  the  mere  trifle  having  become  porous  to  thought 
and  bibulous  of  the  sea  of  light. 

Converse  with  a  mind  that  is  grandly  simple,  and 
literature  looks  like  word-catching.  The  simplest 
utterances  are  worthiest  to  be  written,  yet  are  they 
so  cheap  and  so  things  of  course,  that  in  the  infinite 
riches  of  the  soul  it  is  like  gathering  a  few  pebbles  off 
the  ground,  or  bottling  a  little  air  in  a  phial,  when 
the  whole  earth  and  the  whole  atmosphere  are  ours. 
The  mere  author  in  such  society  is  like  a  pickpocket 
among  gentlemen,  who  has  come  in  to  steal  <a  gold 
button  or  a  pin.  Nothing  can  pass  there,  or  make 
you  one  of  the  circle,  but  the  casting  aside  your  trap 
pings  and  dealing  man  to  man  in  naked  truth,  plain 
confession  and  omniscient  affirmation. 

Souls  such  as  these  treat  you  as  gods  would,  walk 
as  gods  in  the  earth,  accepting  without  any  admira 
tion  your  wit,  your  bounty,  your  virtue  even,  say 
rather  your  act  of  duty,  for  your  virtue  they  own  as 
their  proper  blood,  royal  as  themselves,  and  over- 
royal,  and  the  father  of  the  gods.  But  what  rebuke 
their  plain  fraternal  bearing  casts  on  the  mutual  flat- 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  215 

tery  with  which  authors  solace  each  other  and  wound 
themselves !  These  flatter  not.  I  do  not  wonder 
that  these  men  go  to  see  Cromwell  and  Christina  and 
Charles  the  II.  and  James  I.  and  the  Grand  Turk. 
For  they  are,  in  their  own  elevation,  the  fellows  of 
kings,  and  must  feel  the  servile  tone  of  conversation 
in  the  world.  They  must  always  be  a  godsend  to 
princes,  for  they  confront  them,  a  king  to  a  king, 
without  ducking  or  concession,  and  give  a  high 
nature  the  refreshment  and  satisfaction  of  resistance, 
of  plain  humanity,  of  even  companionship  and  of  new 
ideas.  They  leave  them  wiser  and  superior  men. 
Souls  like  these  make  us  feel  that  sincerity  is  more 
excellent  than  flattery.  Deal  so  plainly  with  man 
and  woman  as  to  constrain  the  utmost  sincerity  and 
destroy  all  hope  of  trifling  with  you.  It  is  the  high 
est  compliment  you  can  pay.  Their  "  highest  prais 
ing,"  said  Milton,  "is  not  flattery,  and  their  plainest 
advice  is  a  kind  of  praising.1' 

Ineffable  is  the  union  of  man  and  God  in  every  act 
of  the  soul.  The  simplest  person  who  in  his  integrity 
worships  God,  becomes  God ;  yet  for  ever  and  ever 
the  influx  of  this  better  and  universal  self  is  new  and 
unsearchable.  Ever  it  inspires  awe  and  astonish 
ment.  How  dear,  how  soothing  to  man,  arises  the 
idea  of  God,  peopling  the  lonely  place,  effacing  the 
scars  of  our  mistakes  and  disappointments !  When 
we  have  broken  our  god  of  tradition  and  ceased  from 
our  god  of  rhetoric,  then  may  God  fire  the  heart  with 
his  presence.  It  is  the  doubling  of  the  heart  itself, 
nay,  the  infinite  enlargement  of  the  heart  with  a  power 
of  growth  to  a  new  infinity  on  every  side.  It  inspires 


216  THE    OVER-SOUL. 

in  man  an  infallible  trust.  He  has  not  the  conviction, 
but  the  sight,  that  the  best  is  the  true,  and  may  in 
that  thought  easily  dismiss  all  particular  uncertainties 
and  fears,  and  adjourn  to  the  sure  revelation  of  time 
the  solution  of  his  private  riddles.  He  is  sure  that 
his  welfare  is  dear  to  the  heart  of  being.  In  the 
presence  of  law  to  his  mind  he  is  overflowed  with  a 
reliance  so  universal  that  it  sweeps  away  all  cherished 
hopes  and  the  most  stable  projects  of  mortal  condi 
tion  in  its  flood.  He  believes  that  he  cannot  escape 
from  his  good.  The  things  that  are  really  for  thee 
gravitate  to  thee.  You  are  running  to  seek  your 
friend.  Let  your  feet  run,  but  your  mind  need  not. 
If  you  do  not  find  him,  will  you  not  acquiesce  that  it 
is  best  you  should  not  find  him  ?  for  there  is  a  power, 
which  as  it  is  in  you,  is  in  him  also,  and  could  there 
fore  very  well  bring  you  together,  if  it  were  for  the 
best.  You  are  preparing  with  eagerness  to  go  and 
render  a  service  to  which  your  talent  and  your  taste 
invite  you,  the  love  of  men  and  the  hope  of  fame. 
Has  it  not  occurred  to  you  that  you  have  no  right  to 
go,  unless  you  are  equally  willing  to  be  prevented 
from  going?  O,  believe*  as  thou  livest,  that  every 
sound  that  is  spoken  over  the  round  world,  which 
thou  oughtest  to  hear,  will  vibrate  on  thine  ear. 
Every  proverb,  every  book,  every  by-word  that  be 
longs  to  thee  for  aid  or  comfort,  shall  surely  come 
home  through  open  or  winding  passages.  Every 
friend  whom  not  thy  fantastic  will  but  the  great  and 
tender  heart  in  thee  craveth,  shall  lock  thee  in  his 
embrace.  And  this  because  the  heart  in  thee  is  the 
heart  of  all ;  not  a  valve,  not  a  wall,  not  an  intersec- 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  217 

tion  is  there  anywhere  in  nature,  but  one  blood  rolls 
uninterruptedly  an  endless  circulation  through  all 
men,  as  the  water  of  the  globe  is  all  one  sea,  and, 
truly  seen,  its  tide  is  one. 

Let  man  then  learn  the  revelation  of  all  nature  and 
all  thought  to  his  heart;  this,  namely;  that  the  High 
est  dwells  with  him ;  that  the  sources  of  nature  are  in 
his  own  mind,  if  the  sentiment  of  duty  is  there.  But 
if  he  would  know  what  the  great  God  speaketh,  he 
must  'go  into  his  closet  and  shut  the  door/.as  Jesus 
said.  God  will  not  make  himself  manifest  to  cow 
ards.  He  must  greatly  listen  to  himself,  withdraw 
ing  himself  from  all  the  accents  of  other  men's  devo 
tion.  Their  prayers  even  are  hurtful  to  him,  until  he 
have  made  his  own.  Our  religion  vulgarly  stands  on 
numbers  of  believers.  Whenever  the  appeal  is  made, 
—  no  matter  how  indirectly,  —  to  numbers,  proclama 
tion  is  then  and  there  made  that  religion  is  not.  He 
that  finds  God  a  sweet  enveloping  thought  to  him 
never  counts  his  company.  When  I  sit  in  that  pres 
ence,  who  shall  dare  to  come  in?  When  I  rest  in 
perfect  humility,  when  I  burn  with  pure  love,  what  can 
Calvin  or  Swedenborg  say? 

It  makes  no  difference  whether  the  appeal  is  to 
numbers  or  to  one.  The  faith  that  stands  on 
authority  is  not  faith.  The  reliance  on  authority 
measures  the  decline  of  religion,  the  withdrawal  of 
the  soul.  The  position  men  have  given  to  Jesus, 
now  for  many  centuries  of  history,  is  'a  position  of 
authority.  It  characterizes  themselves.  It  cannot 
alter  the  eternal  facts.  Great  is  the  soul,  and  plain. 
It  is  no  flatterer,  it  is  no  follower ;  it  never  appeals 


2i8  THE    OVER-SOUL. 

from  itself.  It  always  believes  in  itself.  Before  the 
immense  possibilities  of  man  all  mere  experience, 
all  past  biography,  however  spotless  and  sainted, 
shrinks  away.  Before  that  holy  heaven  which  our 
presentiments  foreshow  us,  we  cannot  easily  praise 
any  form  of  life  we  have  seen  or  read  of.  We 
not  only  affirm  that  we  have  few  great  men,  but, 
absolutely  speaking,  that  we  have  none;  that  we 
have  no  history,  no  record  of  any  character  or  mode 
of  living  that  entirely  contents  us.  The  saints  and 
demigods  whom  history  worships  we  are  constrained 
to  accept  with  a  grain  of  allowance.  Though  in  our 
lonely  hours  we  draw  a  new  strength  out  of  their 
memory,  yet,  pressed  on  our  attention,  as  they  are  by 
the  thoughtless  and  customary,  they  fatigue  and  in 
vade.  The  soul  gives  itself,  alone,  original  and 
pure,  to  the  Lonely,  Original  and  Pure,  who,  on  that 
condition,  gladly  inhabits,  leads  and  speaks  through 
it.  Then  is  it  glad,  young  and  nimble.  It  is  not 
wise,  but  it  sees  through  all  things.  It  is  not  called 
religious,  but  it  is  innocent.  It  calls,  the  light  its 
own,  and  feels  that  the  grass  grows  and  the  stone 
falls  by  a  law  inferior  to,  and  dependent  on,  its 
nature.  Behold,  it  saith,  I  am  born  into  the  great, 
the  universal  mind.  I,  the  imperfect,  adore  my  own 
Perfect.  I  am  somehow  receptive  of  the  great  soul, 
and  thereby  I  do  overlook  the  sun  and  the  stars  and 
feel  them  to  be  but  the  fair  accidents  and  effects 
which  change"  and  pass.  More  and  more  the  surges 
of  everlasting  nature  enter  into  me,  and  I  become 
public  and  human  in  my  regards  and  actions.  So 
come  I  to  live  in  thoughts  and  act  with  energies 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  219 

which  are  immortal.  Thus  revering  the  soul,  and 
learning,  as  the  ancients  said,  that  "its  beauty  is 
immense,"  man  will  come  to  see  that  the  world  is  the 
perennial  miracle  which  the  soul  worketh,  and  be 
less  astonished  at  particular  wonders ;  he  will  learn 
that  there  is  no  profane  history ;  that  all  history  is 
sacred ;  that  the  universe  is  represented  in  an  atom, 
in  a  moment  of  time.  He  will  weave  no  longer  a 
spotted  life  of  shreds  and  patches,  but  he  will  live 
with  a  divine  unity.  He  will  cease  from  what  is  base 
and  frivolous  in  his  own  life  and  be  content  with  all 
places  and  any  service  he  can  render.  He  will  calmly 
front  the  morrow  in  the  negligency  of  that  trust  which 
carries  God  with  it  and  so  hath  already  the  whole 
future  in  the  bottom  of  the  heart. 


ESSAY   X. 

CIRCLES. 

THE  eye  is  the  first  circle ;  the  horizon  which  it 
forms  is  the  second ;  and  throughout  nature  this 
primary  picture  is  repeated  without  end.  It  is  the 
highest  emblem  in  the  cipher  of  the  world.  St. 
Augustine  described  the  nature  of  God  as  a  circle 
whose  centre  was  everywhere  and  its  circumference 
nowhere.  We  are  all  our  lifetime  reading  the  copious 
sense  of  this  first  of  forms.  One  moral  we  have 
already  deduced  in  considering  the  circular  or  com 
pensatory  character  of  every  human  action.  Another 
analogy  we  shall  now  trace,  that  every  action  admits 
of  being  outdone.  Our  life  is  an  apprenticeship  to 
the  truth  that  around  every  circle  another  can  be 
drawn ;  that  there  is  no  end  in  nature,  but  every  end 
is  a  beginning;  that  there  is  always  another  dawn 
risen  on  mid-noon,  and  under  every  deep  a  lower 
deep  opens. 

This  fact,  as  far  as  it  symbolizes  the  moral  fact  of 
the  Unattainable,  the  flying  Perfect,  around  which 
the  hands  of  man  can  never  meet,  at  once  the  inspirer 
and  the  condemner  of  every  success,  may  conveniently 
serve  us  to  connect  many  illustrations  of  human  power 
in  every  department. 


CIRCLES.  221 

There  are  no  fixtures  in  nature.  The  universe  is 
fluid  and  volatile.  Permanence  is  but  a  word  of 
degrees.  Our  globe  seen  by  God  is  a  transparent 
law,  not  a  mass  of  facts.  The  law  dissolves  the  fact 
and  holds  it  fluid.  Our  culture  is  the  predominance 
of  an  idea  which  draws  after  it  all  this  train  of  cities 
and  institutions.  Let  us  rise  into  another  idea;  they 
will  disappear.  The  Greek  sculpture  is  all  melted 
away,  as  if  it  had  been  statues  of  ice :  here  and  there 
a  solitary  figure  or  fragment  remaining,  as  we  see 
flecks  and  scraps  of  snow  left  in  cold  dells  and  moun 
tain  clefts  in  June  and  July.  For  the  genius  that 
created  it  creates  now  somewhat  else.  The  Greek 
letters  last  a  little  longer,  but  are  already  passing 
under  the  same  sentence  and  tumbling  into  the  inevi 
table  pit  which  the  creation  of  new  thought  opens  for 
all  that  is  old.  The  new  continents  are  built  out  of 
the  ruins  of  an  old  planet ;  the  new  races  fed  out  of  the 
decomposition  of  the  foregoing.  New  arts  destroy 
the  old.  See  the  investment  of  capital  in  aqueducts, 
made  useless  by  hydraulics ;  fortifications,  by  gun 
powder;  roads  and  canals,  by  railways;  sails,  by 
steam  ;  steam,  by  electricity. 

You  admire  this  tower  of  granite,  weathering  the 
hurts  of  so  many  ages.  Yet  a  little  waving  hand 
built  this  huge  wall,  and  that  which  builds  is  better 
than  that  which  is  built.  The  hand  that  built  can 
topple  it  down  much  faster.  Better  than  the  hand 
and  nimbler  was  the  invisible  thought  which  wrought 
through  it ;  and  thus  ever,  behind  the  coarse  effect, 
is  a  fine  cause,  which,  being  narrowly  seen,  is  itself 
the  effect  of  a  finer  cause.  Every  thing  looks  perma- 


222  CIRCLES. 

nent  until  its  secret  is  known.  A  rich  estate  appears 
to  women  and  children  a  firm  and  lasting  fact ;  to  a 
merchant,  one  easily  created  out  of  any  materials,  and 
easily  lost.  An  orchard,  good  tillage,  good  grounds, 
seem  a  fixture,  like  a  gold  mine,  or  a  river,  to  a  citi 
zen  ;  but  to  a  large  farmer,  not  much  more  fixed  than 
the  state  of  the  crop.  Nature  looks  provokingly 
stable  and  secular,  but  it  has  a  cause  like  all  the  rest ; 
and  when  once  I  comprehend  that,  will  these  fields 
stretch  so  immovably  wide,  these  leaves  hang  so 
individually  considerable?  Permanence  is  a  word  of 
degrees.  Every  thing  is  medial.  Moons  are  no 
more  bounds  to  spiritual  power  than  bat-balls. 

The  key  to  every  man  is  his  thought.  Sturdy  and 
defying  though  he  look,  he  has  a  helm  which  he 
obeys,  which  is  the  idea  after  which  all  his  facts  are 
classified.  He  can  only  be  reformed  by  showing  him 
a  new  idea  which  commands  his  own.  The  life  of 
man  is  a  self-evolving  circle,  which,  from  a  ring 
imperceptibly  small,  rushes  on  all  sides  outwards  to 
new  and  larger  circles,  and  that  without  end.  The 
extent  to  which  this  generation  of  circles,  wheel  with 
out  wheel,  will  go,  depends  on  the  force  or  truth  of 
the  individual  soul.  For  it  is  the  inert  effort  of  each 
thought,  having  formed  itself  into  a  circular  wave  of 
circumstance,  as  for  instance  an  empire,  rules  of  an 
art,  a  local  usage,  a  religious  rite,  to  heap  itself  on 
that  ridge  and  to  solidify  and  hem  in  the  life.  But 
if  the  soul  is  quick  and  strong  it  bursts  over  that 
boundary  on  all  sides  and  expands  another  orbit  on 
the  great  deep,  which  also  runs  up  into  a  high  wave, 
with  attempt  again  to  stop  and  to  bind.  But  the 


CIRCLES.  223 

heart  refuses  to  be  imprisoned ;  in  its  first  and  nar 
rowest  pulses  it  already  tends  outward  with  a  vast 
force  and  to  immense  and  innumerable  expansions. 

Every  ultimate  fact  is  only  the  first  of  a  new  series. 
Every  general  law  only  a  particular  fact  of  some  more 
general  law  presently  to  disclose  itself.  There  is  no 
outside,  no  inclosing  wall,  no  circumference  to  us. 
The  man  finishes  his  story, —  how  good  !  how  final ! 
how  it  puts  a  new  face  on  all  things !  He  fills  the 
sky.  Lo,  on  the  other  side  rises  also  a  man  and 
draws  a  circle  around  the  circle  we  had  just  pro 
nounced  the  outline  of  the  sphere.  Then  already  is 
our  first  speaker  not  man,  but  only  a  first  speaker. 
His  only  redress  is  forthwith  to  draw  a  circle  outside 
of  his  antagonist.  And  so  men  do  by  themselves. 
The  result  of  to-day,  which  haunts  the  mind  and  can 
not  be  escaped,  will  presently  be  abridged  into  a 
word,  and  the  principle  that  seemed  to  explain  nature 
will  itself  be  included  as  one  example  of  a  bolder 
generalization.  In  the  thought  of  to-morrow  there  is 
a  power  to  upheave  all  thy  creed,  all  the  creeds,  all 
the  literatures  of  the  nations,  and  marshal  thee  to  a 
heaven  which  no  epic  dream  has  yet  depicted.  Every 
man  is  not  so  much  a  workman  in  the  world  as  he  is 
a  suggestion  of  that  he  should  be.  Men  walk  as 
prophecies  of  the  next  age. 

Step  by  step  we  scale  this  mysterious  ladder ;  the 
steps  are  actions,  the  new  prospect  is  power.  Every 
several  result  is  threatened  and  judged  by  that  which 
follows.  Every  one  seems  to  be  contradicted  by  the 
new ;  it  is  only  limited  by  the  new.  The  new  state 
ment  is  always  hated  by  the  old,  and,  to  those  dwell- 


224  CIRCLES. 

ing  in  the  old,  comes  like  an  abyss  of  scepticism. 
But  the  eye  soon  gets  wonted  to  it,  for  the  eye  and  it 
are  effects  of  one  cause ;  then  its  innocency  and 
benefit  appear,  and  presently,  all  its  energy  spent,  it 
pales  and  dwindles  before  the  revelation  of  the  new 
hour. 

Fear  not  the  new  generalization.  Does  the  fact 
look  crass  and  material,  threatening  to  degrade  thy 
theory  of  spirit?  Resist  it  not;  it  goes  to  refine 
and  raise  thy  theory  of  matter  just  as  much. 

There  are  no  fixtures  to  men,  if  we  appeal  to  con 
sciousness.  Every  man  supposes  himself  not  to  be 
fully  understood ;  and  if  there  is  any  truth  in  him,  if 
he  rests  at  last  on  the  divine  soul,  I  see  not  how  it 
can  be  otherwise.  The  last  chamber,  the  last  closet, 
he  must  feel  was  never  opened ;  there  is  always  a 
residuum  unknown,  unanalyzable.  That  is,  every 
man  believes  that  he  has  a  greater  possibility. 

Our  moods  do  not  believe  in  each  other.  To-day 
I  am  full  of  thoughts  and  can  write  what  I  please. 
I  see  no  reason  why  I  should  not  have  the  same 
thought,  the  same  power  of  expression,  to-morrow. 
What  I  write,  whilst  I  write  it,  seems  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world :  but  yesterday  I  saw  a 
dreary  vacuity  in  this  direction  in  which  now  I  see 
so  much  ;  and  a  month  hence,  I  doubt  not,  I  shall 
wonder  who  he  was  that  wrote  so  many  continuous 
pages.  Alas  for  this  infirm  faith,  this  will  not 
strenuous,  this  vast  ebb  of  a  vast  flow!  I  am  God 
in  nature ;  I  am  a  weed  by  the  wall. 

The  continual  effort  to  raise  himself  above  him 
self,  to  work  a  pitch  above  his  last  height,  betrays 


CIRCLES.  225 

itself  in  a  man's  relations.  We  thirst  for  approba 
tion,  yet  cannot  forgive  the  approver.  The  sweet 
of  nature  is  love ;  yet  if  I  have  a  friend  I  am  tor 
mented  by  my  imperfections.  The  love  of  me  ac 
cuses  the  other  party.  If  he  were  high  enough  to 
slight  me,  then  could  I  love  him,  and  rise  by  my 
affection  to  new  heights.  A  man's  growth  is  seen 
in  the  successive  choirs  of  his  friends.  For  every 
friend  whom  he  loses  for  truth,  he  gains  a  better. 
I  thought  as  I  walked  in  the  woods  and  mused  on 
my  friends,  why  should  I  play  with  them  this  game 
of  idolatry?  I  know  and  see  too  well,  when  not 
voluntarily  blind,  the  speedy  limits  of  persons  called 
high  and  worthy.  Rich,  noble  and  great  they  are 
by  the  liberality  of  our  speech,  but  truth  is  sad.  O 
blessed  Spirit,  whom  I  forsake  for  these,  they  are 
not  thee !  Every  personal  consideration  that  we 
allow  costs  us  heavenly  state.  We  sell  the  thrones 
of  angels  for  a  short  and  turbulent  pleasure. 

How  often  must  we  learn  this  lesson  ?  Men  cease 
to  interest  us  when  we  find  their  limitations.  The 
only  sin  is  limitation.  As  soon  as  you  once  come  up 
with  a  man's  limitations,  it  is  all  over  with  him. 
Has  he  talents?  has  he  enterprises?  has  he  knowl 
edge?  It  boots  not.  Infinitely  alluring  and  attrac 
tive  was  he  to  you  yesterday,  a  great  hope,  a  sea  to 
swim  in ;  now,  you  have  found  his  shores,  found  it  a 
pond,  and  you  care  not  if  you  never  see  it  again. 

Each  new  step  we  take  in  thought  reconciles 
twenty  seemingly  discordant  facts,  as  expressions  of 
one  law.  Aristotle  and  Plato  are  reckoned  the  re 
spective  heads  of  two  schools.  A  wise  man  will  see 


226  CIRCLES. 

that  Aristotle  Platonizes.  By  going  one  step  farther 
back  in  thought,  discordant  opinions  are  reconciled 
by  being  seen  to  be*  two  extremes  of  one  principle, 
and  we  can  never  go  so  far  back  as  to  preclude  a  still 
higher  vision. 

Beware  when  the  great  God  lets  loose  a  thinker 
on  this  planet.  Then  all  things  are  at  risk.  It  is 
as  when  a  conflagration  has  broken  out  in  a  great 
city,  and  no  man  knows  what  is  safe,  or  where  it  will 
end.  There  is  not  a  piece  of  science  but  its  flank 
may  be  turned  to-morrow;  there  is  not  any  literary 
reputation,  not  the  so-called  eternal  names  of  fame, 
that  may  not  be  revised  and  condemned.  The  very 
hopes  of  man,  the  thoughts  of  his  heart,  the  religion 
of  nations,  the  manners  and  morals  of  mankind  are 
all  at  the  mercy  of  a  new  generalization.  Generaliza 
tion  is  always  a  new  influx  of  the  divinity  into  the 
mind.  Hence  the  thrill  that  attends  it. 

Valor  consists  in  the  power  of  self-recovery,  so 
that  a  man  cannot  have  his  flank  turned,  cannot  be 
out-generalled,  but  put  him  where  you  will,  he  stands. 
This  can  only  be  by  his  preferring  truth  to  his  past 
apprehension  of  truth,  and  his  alert  acceptance  of  it 
from  whatever  quarter;  the  intrepid  conviction  that 
his  laws,  his  relations  to  society,  his  Christianity,  his 
world,  may  at  any  time  be  superseded  and  decease. 

There  are  degrees  in  idealism.  We  learn  first  to 
play  with  it  academically,  as  the  magnet  was  once  a 
toy.  Then  we  see  in  the  heyday  of  youth  and  poetry 
that  it  may  be  true,  that  it  is  true  in  gleams  and 
fragments.  Then,  its  countenance  waxes  stern  and 
grand,  and  we  see  that  it  must  be  true.  It  now 


CIRCLES.  227 

shows  itself  ethical  and  practical.  We  learn  that 
God  is ;  that  he  is  in  me ;  and  that  all  things  are 
shadows  of  him.  The  idealism  of  Berkeley  is  only  a 
crude  statement  of  the  idealism  of  Jesus,  and  that 
again  is  a  crude  statement  of  the  fact  that  all  nature  is 
the  rapid  efflux  of  goodness  executing  and  organizing 
itself.  Much  more  obviously  is  history  and  the  state  of 
the  world  at  any  one  time  directly  dependent  on  the 
intellectual  classification  then  existing  in  the  minds  of 
men.  The  things  which  are  dear  to  men  at  this 
hour  are  so  on  account  of  the  ideas  which  have 
emerged  on  their  mental  horizon,  and  which  cause 
the  present  order  of  things,  as  a  tree  bears  its  apples. 
A  new  degree  of  culture  would  instantly  revolutionize 
the  entire  system  of  human  pursuits. 

Conversation  is  a  game  of  circles.  In  conversa 
tion  we  pluck  up  the  termini  which  bound  the  com 
mon  of  silence  on  every  side.  The  parties  are  not 
to  be  judged  by  the  spirit  they  partake  and  even 
express  under  this  Pentecost.  To-morrow  they  will 
have  receded  from  this  high-water  mark.  To-mor 
row  you  shall  find  them  stooping  under  the  old 
pack-saddles.  Yet  let  us  enjoy  the  cloven  flame 
whilst  it  glows  on  our  walls.  When  each  new 
speaker  strikes  a  new  light,  emancipates  us  from 
the  oppression  of  the  last  speaker  to  oppress  us  with 
the  greatness  and  exclusiveness  of  his  own  thought, 
then  yields  us  to  another  redeemer,  we  seem  to  re 
cover  our  rights,  to  become  men.  O,  what  truths 
profound  and  executable  only  in  ages  and  orbs,  are 
supposed  in  the  announcement  of  every  truth  !  In 
common  hours,  society  sits  cold  and  statuesque. 


228  CIRCLES. 

We  all  stand  waiting,  empty, — knowing,  possibly, 
that  we  can  be  full,  surrounded  by  mighty  symbols 
which  are  not  symbols  to  us,  but  prose  and  trivial 
toys.  Then  cometh  the  god  and  converts  the  statues 
into  fiery  men,  and  by  a  flash  of  his  eye  burns  up  the 
veil  which  shrouded  all  things,  and  the  meaning  of 
the  very  furniture,  of  cup  and  saucer,  of  chair  and 
clock  and  tester,  is  manifest.  The  facts  which  loomed 
so  large  in  the  fogs  of  yesterday,  — property,  climate, 
breeding,  personal  beauty  and  the  like,  have  strangely 
changed  their  proportions.  All  that  we  reckoned 
settled  shakes  and  rattles ;  and  literatures,  cities, 
climates,  religions,  leave  their  foundations  and  dance 
before  our  eyes.  And  yet  here  again  see  the  swift 
circumscription !  Good  as  is  discourse,  silence  is 
better,  and  shames  it.  The  length  of  the  discourse 
indicates  the  distance  of  thought  betwixt  the  speaker 
and  the  hearer.  If  they  were  at  a  perfect  under 
standing  in  any  part,  no  wordswould.be  necessary 
thereon.  If  at  one  in  all  parts,  no  words  would  be 
suffered . 

Literature  is  a  point  outside  of  our  hodiernal  circle 
through  which  a  new  one  may  be  described.  The 
use  of  literature  is  to  afford  us  a  platform  whence  we 
may  command  a  view  of  our  present  life,  a  purchase 
by  which  we  may  move  it.  We  fill  ourselves  with 
ancient  learning,  install  ourselves  the  best  we  can  in 
Greek,  in  Punic,  in  Roman  houses,  only  that  we  may 
wiselier  see  French,  English  and  American  houses 
and  modes  of  living.  In  like  manner  we  see  litera 
ture  best  from  the  midst  of  wild  nature,  or  from  the 
din  of  affairs,  or  from  a  high  religion.  The  field  can- 


CIRCLES.  229 

not  be  well  seen  from  within  the  field.  The  astrono 
mer  must  have  his  diameter  of  the  earth's  orbit  as  a 
base  to  find  the  parallax  of  any  star. 

Therefore  we  value  the  poet.  All  the  argument 
and  all  the  wisdom  is  not  in  the  encyclopaedia,  or 
the  treatise  on  metaphysics,  or  the  Body  of  Divinity, 
but  in  the  sonnet  or  the  play.  In  my  daily  work  I 
incline  to  repeat  my  old  steps,  and  do  not  believe  in 
remedial  force,  in  the  power  of  change  and  reform. 
But  some  Petrarch  or  Ariosto,  filled  with  the  new 
wine  of  his  imagination,  writes  me  an  ode  or  a  brisk 
romance,  full  of  daring  thought  and  action.  He 
smites  and  arouses  me  with  his  shrill  tones,  breaks 
up  my -whole  chain  of  habits,  and  I  open  my  eye  on 
my  own  possibilities.  He  claps  wings  to  the  sides 
of  all  the  solid  old  lumber  of  the  world,  and  I  am 
capable  once  more  of  choosing  a  straight  path  in 
theory  and  practice. 

We  have  the  same  need  to  command  a  view  of  the 
religion  of  the  world.  We  can  never  see  Christianity 
from  the  catechism  :  —  from  the  pastures,  from  a  boat 
in  the  pond,  from  amidst  the  songs  of  wood-birds  we 
possibly  may.  Cleansed  by  the  elemental  light  and 
wind,  steeped  in  the  sea  of  beautiful  forms  which  the 
field  offers  us,  we  may  chance  to  cast  a  right  glance 
back  upon  biography.  Christianity  is  rightly  dear  to 
the  best  of  mankind ;  yet  was  there  never  a  young 
philosopher  whose  breeding  had  fallen  into  the 
Christian  church  by  whom  that  brave  text  of  Paul's 
was  not  specially  prized,  *'  Then  shall  also  the  Son 
be  subject  unto  Him  who  put  all  things  under  him, 
that  God  may  be  all  in  all."  Let  the  claims  and 


230  CIRCLES. 

virtues  of  persons  be  never  so  great  and  welcome, 
the  instinct  of  man  presses  eagerly  onward  to  the 
impersonal  and  illimitable,  and  gladly  arms  itself 
against  the  dogmatism  of  bigots  with  this  generous 
word  out  of  the  book  itself. 

The  natural  world  may  be  conceived  of  as  a  system 
of  concentric  circles,  and  we  now  and  then  detect  in 
nature  slight  dislocations  which  apprize  us  that  this 
surface  on  which  we  now  stand  is  not  fixed,  but  slid 
ing.  These  manifold  tenacious  qualities,  this  chem 
istry  and  vegetation,  these  metals  and  animals, 
which  seem  to  stand  there  for  their  own  sake,  are 
means  and  methods  only,  are  words  of  God,  and  as 
fugitive  as  other  words.  Has  the  naturalist  or 
chemist  learned  his  craft,  who  has  explored  the 
gravity  of  atoms  and  the  elective  affinities,  who  has 
not  yet  discerned  the  deeper  law  whereof  this  is  only 
a  partial  or  approximate  statement,  namely  that  like 
draws  to  like,  and  that  the  goods  which  belong  to 
you  gravitate  to  you  and  need  not  be  pursued  with 
pains  and  cost?  Yet  is  that  statement  approximate 
also,  and  not  final.  Omnipresence  is  a  higher  fact. 
Not  through  subtle  subterranean  channels  need  friend 
and  fact  be  drawn  to  their  counterpart,  but,  rightly 
considered,  these  things  proceed  from  the  eternal 
generation  of  the  soul.  Cause-  and  effect  are  two 
sides  of  one  fact. 

The  same  law  of  eternal  procession  ranges  all 
that  we  call  the  virtues,  and  extinguishes  each  in  the 
light  of  a  better.  The  great  man  will  not  be  prudent 
in  the  popular  sense ;  all  his  prudence  will  be  so 
much  deduction  from  his  grandeur.  But  it  behoves 


CIRCLES.  231 

each  to  see,  when  he  sacrifices  prudence,  to  what  god 
he  devotes  it ;  if  to  ease  and  pleasure,  he  had  better 
be  prudent  still ;  if  to  a  great  trust,  he  can  well  spare 
his  mule  and  panniers  who  has  a  winged  chariot  in 
stead.  Geoffrey  draws  on  his  boots  to  go  through 
the  woods,  that  his  feet  may  be  safer  from  the  bite  of 
snakes ;  Aaron  never  thinks  of  such  a  peril.  In 
many  years  neither  is  harmed  by  such  an  accident. 
Yet  it  seems  to  me  that  with  every  precaution  you 
take  against  such  an  evil  you  put  yourself  into  the 
power  of  the  evil.  I  suppose  that  the  highest  pru 
dence  is  the  lowest  prudence.  Is  this  too  sudden  a 
rushing  from  the  centre  to  the  verge  of  our  orbit  ? 
Think  how  many  times  we  shall  fall  back  into  pitiful 
calculations  before  we  take  up  our  rest  in  the  great 
sentiment,  or  make  the  verge  of  to-day  the  new  cen 
tre.  Besides,  your  bravest  sentiment  is  familiar  to 
the  humblest  men.  The  poor  and  the  low  have 
their  way  of  expressing  the  last  facts  of  philosophy 
as  well  as  you.  "Blessed  be  nothing"  and  "The 
worse  things  are,  the  better  they  are"  are  proverbs 
which  express  the  transcendentalism  of  common  life. 
One  man's  justice  is  another's  injustice ;  one 
man's  beauty  another's  ugliness ;  one  man's  wisdom 
another's  folly ;  as  one  beholds  the  same  objects 
from  a  higher  point  of  view.  One  man  thinks  jus 
tice  consists  in  paying  debts,  and  has  no  measure  in 
his  abhorrence  of  another  who  is  very  remiss  in  this 
duty  and  makes  the  creditor  wait  tediously.  But 
that  second  man  has  his  own  way  of  looking  at 
things ;  asks  himself  which  debt  must  I  pay  first, 
the  debt  to  the  rich,  or  the  debt  to  the  poor?  the 


232  CIRCLES. 

debt  of  money,  or  the  debt  of  thought  to  mankind, 
of  genius  to  nature?  For  you,  O  broker,  there  is  no 
no  other  principle  but  arithmetic.  For  me,  commerce 
is  of  trivial  import;  love,  faith,  truth  of  char 
acter,  the  aspiration  of  man,  these  are  sacred ;  nor 
can  I  detach  one  duty,  like  you,  from  all  other 
duties,  and  concentrate  my  forces  mechanically  on 
the  payment  of  moneys.  Let  me  live  onward ;  you 
shall  find  that,  though  slower,  the  progress  of  my 
character  will  liquidate  all  these  debts  without  in 
justice  to  higher  claims.  If  a  man  should  dedicate 
himself  to  the  payment  of  notes,  would  not  this  be 
injustice?  Owes  he  no  debt  but  money?  And 
are  all  claims  on  him  to  be  postponed  to  a  land 
lord's  or  a  banker's? 

There  is  no  virtue  which  is  final ;  all  are  initial. 
The  virtues  of  society  are  vices  of  the  saint.  The 
terror  of  reform  is  the  discovery  that  we  must  cast 
away  our  virtues,  or  what  we  have  always  esteemed 
such,  into  the  same  pit  that  has  consumed  our 
grosser  vices. 

Forgive  his  crimes,  forgive  his  virtues  too, 
Those  smaller  faults,  half  converts  to  the  right. 

It  is  the  highest  power  of  divine  moments  that 
they  abolish  our  contritions  also.  I  accuse  myself 
of  sloth  and  unprofitableness  day  by  day ;  but  when 
these  waves  of  God  flow  into  me  I  no  longer  reckon 
lost  time.  I  no  longer  poorly  compute  my  possible 
achievement  by  what  remains  to  me  of  the  month 
or  the  year ;  for  these  moments  confer  a  sort  of 
omnipresence  and  omnipotence  which  asks  nothing 


CIRCLES.  233 

of  duration,  but  sees  that  the  energy  of  the  mind 
is  commensurate  with  the  work  to  be  done,  without 
time. 

And  thus,  O  circular  philosopher,  I  hear  some 
reader  exclaim,  you  have  arrived  at  a  fine  pyr- 
rhonism,  at  an  equivalence  and  indifferency  of  all 
actions,  and  would  fain  teach  us  that  if  we  are  true, 
forsooth,  our  crimes  may  be  lively  stones  out  of 
which  we  shall  construct  the  temple  of  the  true 
God. 

I  am  not  careful  to  justify  myself.  I  own  I  am 
gladdened  by  seeing  the  predominance  of  the  sac 
charine  principle  throughout  vegetable  nature,  and 
not  less  by  beholding  in  morals  that  unrestrained 
inundation  of  the  principle  of  good  into  every  chink 
and  hole  that  selfishness  has  left  open,  yea  into  self 
ishness  and  sin  itself;  so  that  no  evil  is  pure,  nor 
hell  itself  without  its  extreme  satisfactions.  But 
lest  I  should  mislead  any  when  I  have  my  own  head 
and  obey  my  whims,  let  me  remind  the  reader  that 
I  am  only  an  experimenter.  Do  not  set  the  least 
value  on  what  I  do,  or  the  least  discredit  on  what 
I  do  not,  as  if  I  pretended  to  settle  any  thing  as 
true  or  false.  I  unsettle  all  things.  No  facts  are 
to  me  sacred ;  none  are  profane ;  I  simply  experi 
ment,  an  endless  seeker  with  no  Past  at  my  back. 

Yet  this  incessant  movement  and  progression 
which  all  things  partake  could  never  become  sensi 
ble  to  us  but  by  contrast  to  some  principle  of  fix 
ture  or  stability  in  the  soul.  Whilst  the  eternal 
generation  of  circles  proceeds,  the  eternal  generator 
abides.  That  central  life  is  somewhat  superior  to 


234  CIRCLES. 

creation,  superior  to  knowledge  and  thought,  and 
contains  all  its  circles.  For  ever  it  labors  to  create 
a  life  and  thought  as  large  and  excellent  as  itself; 
but  in  vain ;  for  that  which  is  made  instructs  how  to 
make  a  better. 

Thus  there  is  no  sleep,  no  pause,  no  preservation, 
but  all  things  renew,  germinate  and  spring.  Why 
should  we  import  rags  and  relics  into  the  new  hour? 
Nature  abhors  the  old,  and  old  age  seems  the  only 
disease :  all  others  run  into  this  one.  We  call  it  by 
many  names,  —  fever,  intemperance,  insanity,  stupid 
ity  and  crime :  they  are  all  forms  of  old  age :  they 
are  rest,  conservatism,  appropriation,  inertia;  not 
newness,  not  the  way  onward.  We  grizzle  every 
day.  I  see  no  need  of  it.  Whilst  we  converse 
with  what  is  above  us,  we  do  not  grow  old,  but  grow 
young.  Infancy,  youth,  receptive,  aspiring,  with 
religious  eye  looking  upward,  counts  itself  nothing 
and  abandons  itself  to  the  instruction  flowing  from 
all  sides.  But  the  man  and  woman  of  seventy  as 
sume  to  know  all ;  throw  up  their  hope ;  renounce 
aspiration;  accept  the  actual  for  the  necessary  and 
talk  down  to  the  young.  Let  them  then  become 
organs  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  let  them  be  lovers ;  let 
them  behold  truth ;  and  their  eyes  are  uplifted,  their 
wrinkles  smoothed,  they  are  perfumed  again  with  hope 
and  power.  This  old  age  ought  not  to  creep  on  a 
human  mind.  In  nature  every  moment  is  new;  the 
past  is  always  swallowed  and  forgotten ;  the  coming 
only  is  sacred.  Nothing  is  secure  but  life,  transi 
tion,  the  energizing  spirit.  No  love  can  be  bound 
by  oath  or  covenant  to  secure  it  against  a  higher 


CIRCLES.  235 

love.  No  truth  so  sublime  but  it  may  be  trivial 
to-morrow  in  the  light  of  new  thoughts.  People  wish 
to  be  settled :  only  as  far  as  they  are  unsettled  is 
there  any  hope  for  them. 

Life  is  a  series  of  surprises.  We  do  not  guess  to 
day  the  mood,  the  pleasure,  the  power  of  to-morrow, 
when  we  are  building  up  our  being.  Of  lower 
states,  —  of  acts  of  routine  and  sense,  we  can  tell 
somewhat,  but  the  masterpieces  of  God,  the  total 
growths  and  universal  movements  of  the  soul,  he 
hideth ;  they  are  incalculable.  I  can  know  that 
truth  is  divine  and  helpful ;  but  how  it  shall  help 
me  I  can  have  no  guess,  for  so  to  be  is  the  sole  in 
let  of  so  to  know.  The  new  position  of  the  advanc 
ing  man  has  all  the  powers  of  the  old,  yet  has  them 
all  new.  It  carries  in  its  bosom  all  the  energies  of 
the  past,  yet  is  itself  an  exhalation  of  the  morning. 
I  cast  away  in  this  new  moment  all  my  once  hoarded 
knowledge,  as  vacant  and  vain.  Now  for  the  first 
time  seem  I  to  know  any  thing  rightly.  The  sim 
plest  words,  —  we  do  not  know  what  they  mean 
except  when  we  love  and  aspire. 

The  difference  between  talents  and  character  is 
adroitness  to  keep  the  old  and  trodden  round,  and 
power  and  courage  to  make  a  new  road  to  new  and 
better  goals.  Character  makes  an  overpowering 
present,  a  cheerful,  determined  hour,  which  fortifies 
all  the  company  by  making  them  see  that  much  is 
possible  and  excellent  that  was  not  thought  of. 
Character  dulls  the  impression  of  particular  events. 
When  we  see  the  conqueror  we  do  not  think  much 
of  any  one  battle  or  success.  We  see  that  we  had 


236  CIRCLES. 

exaggerated  the  difficulty.  It  was  easy  to  him. 
The  great  man  is  not  convulsible  or  tormentable. 
He  is  so  much  that  events  pass  over  him  without 
much  impression.  People  say  sometimes,  '  See  what 
I  have  overcome ;  see  how  cheerful  I  am ;  see  how 
completely  I  have  triumphed  over  these  black  events.1 
Not  if  they  still  remind  me  of  the  black  event, — 
they  have  not  yet  conquered.  Is  it  conquest  to  be  a 
gay  and  decorated  sepulchre,  or  a  half-crazed  widow, 
hysterically  laughing?  True  conquest  is  the  causing 
the  black  event  to  fade  and  disappear  as  an  early 
cloud  of  insignificant  result  in  a  history  so  large  and 
advancing. 

The  one  thing  which  we  seek  with  insatiable  desire 
is  to  forget  ourselves,  to  be  surprised  out  of  our  pro 
priety,  to  lose  our  sempiternal  memory  and  to  do 
something  without  knowing  how  or  why ;  in  short 
to  draw  a  new  circle.  Nothing  great  was  ever 
achieved  without  enthusiasm.  The  way  of  life  is 
wonderful.  It  is  by  abandonment.  The  great  mo 
ments  of  history  are  the  facilities  of  performance 
through  the  strength  of  ideas,  as  the  works  of  genius 
and  religion.  "A  man,"  said  Oliver  Cromwell, 
"  never  rises  so  high  as  when  he  knows  not  whither 
he  is  going."  Dreams  and  drunkenness,  the  use  of 
opium  and  alcohol  are  the  semblance  and  counter 
feit  of  this  oracular  genius,  and  hence  their  danger 
ous  attraction  for  men.  For  the  like  reason  they 
ask  the  aid  of  wild  passions,  as  in  gaming  and  war, 
to  ape  in  some  manner  these  flames  and  generosities 
of  the  heart. 


ESSAY   XI. 

INTELLECT. 

EVERY  substance  is  negatively  electric  to  that  which 
stands  above  it  in  the  chemical  tables,  positively  to 
that  which  stands  below  it.  Water  dissolves  wood 
and  iron  and  salt;  air  dissolves  water;  electric  fire 
dissolves  air,  but  the  intellect  dissolves  fire,  gravity, 
laws,  method,  and  the  subtlest  unnamed  relations  of 
nature  in  its  resistless  menstruum.  Intellect  lies 
behind  genius,  which  is  intellect  constructive.  Intel 
lect  is  the  simple  power  anterior  to  all  action  or  con 
struction.  Gladly  would  I  unfold  in  calm  degrees  a 
natural  history  of  the  intellect,  but  what  man  has  yet 
been  able  to  mark  the  steps  and  boundaries  of  that 
transparent  essence  ?  The  first  questions  are  always 
to  be  asked,  and  the  wisest  doctor  is  gravelled  by  the 
inquisitiveness  of  a  child.  How  can  we  speak  of  the 
action  of  the  mind  under  any  divisions,  as  of  its 
knowledge,  of  its  ethics,  of  its  works,  and  so  forth, 
since  it  melts  will  into  perception,  knowledge  into 
act?  Each  becomes  the  other.  Itself  alone  is.  Its 
vision  is  not  like  the  vision  of  the  eye,  but  is  union 
with  the  things  known. 

Intellect  and  intellection  signify  to  the  common  ear 
consideration  of  abstract  truth.  The  considerations 

237 


238  INTELLECT. 

of  time  and  place,  of  you  and  me,  of  profit  and  hurt 
tyrannize  over  most  men's  minds.  Intellect  separates 
the  fact  considered,  from  you,  from  all  local  and  per 
sonal  reference,  and  discerns  it  as  if  it  existed  for  its 
own  sake.  Heraclitus  looked  upon  the  affections  as 
dense  and  colored  mists.  In  the  fog  of  good  and 
evil  affections  it  is  hard  for  man  to  walk  forward  in  a 
straight  line.  Intellect  is  void  of  affection  and  sees 
an  object  as  it  stands  in  the  light  of  science,  cool  and 
disengaged.  The  intellect  goes  out  of  the  individual, 
floats  over  its  own  personality,  and  regards  it  as  a 
fact,  and  not  as  /and  mine.  He  who  is  immersed  in 
what  concerns  person  or  place  cannot  see  the  prob 
lem  of  existence.  This  the  intellect  always  ponders. 
Nature  shows  all  things  formed  and  bound.  The 
intellect  pierces  the  form,  overleaps  the  wall,  detects 
intrinsic  likeness  between  remote  things  and  reduces 
all  things  into  a  few  principles. 

The  making  a  fact  the  subject  of  thought  raises  it. 
All  that  mass  of  mental  and  moral  phenomena  which 
we  do  not  make  objects  of  voluntary  thought,  come 
within  the  power  of  fortune ;  they  constitute  the  cir 
cumstance  of  daily  life ;  they  are  subject  to  change,  to 
fear  and  hope.  Every  man  beholds  his  human  con 
dition  with  a  degree  of  melancholy.  As  a  ship 
aground  is  battered  by  the  waves,  so  man,  imprisoned 
in  mortal  life,  lies  open  to  the  mercy  of  coming 
events.  But  a  truth,  separated  by  the  intellect,  is  no 
longer  a  subject  of  destiny.  We  behold  it  as  a  god 
upraised  above  care  and  fear.  And  so  any  fact  in  our 
life,  or  any  record  of  our  fancies  or  reflections,  disen 
tangled  from  the  web  of  our  unconsciousness,  becomes 


INTELLECT.  239 

an  object  impersonal  and  immortal.  It  is  the  past 
restored,  but  embalmed.  A  better  art  than  that  of 
Egypt  has  taken  fear  and  corruption  out  of  it.  It  is 
eviscerated  of  care.  It  is  offered  for  science.  What 
is  addressed  to  us  for  contemplation  does  not  threaten 
us  but  makes  us  intellectual  beings. 

The  growth  of  the  intellect  is  spontaneous  in  every 
step.  The  mind  that  grows  could  not  predict  the 
times,  the  means,  the  mode  of  that  spontaneity.  God 
enters  by  a  private  door  into  every  individual.  Long 
prior  to  the  age  of  reflection  is  the  thinking  of  the 
mind.  Out  of  darkness  it  came  insensibly  into  the 
marvellous  light  of  to-day.  In  the  period  of  infancy 
it  accepted  and  disposed  of  all  impressions  from  the 
surrounding  creation  after  its  own  way.  Whatever 
any  mind  doth  or  saith  is  after  a  law.  It  has  no  ran 
dom  act  or  word.  And  this  native  law  remains  over 
it  after  it  has  come  to  reflection  or  conscious  thought. 
Over  it  always  reigned  a  firm  law.  In  the  most  worn, 
pedantic,  introverted  self-tormentor's  life,  the  greatest 
part  is  incalculable  by  him,  unforeseen,  unimaginable, 
and  must  be,  until  he  can  take  himself  up  by  his  own 
ears.  What  am  I?  What  has  my  will  done  to  make 
me  that  I  am?  Nothing.  I  have  been  floated  into. 
this  thought,  this  hour,  this  connection  of  events,  by 
might  and  mind  sublime,  and  my  ingenuity  and  wil- 
fulness  have  not  thwarted,  have  not  aided  to  an  ap 
preciable  degree. 

Our  spontaneous  action  is  always  the  best.  You 
cannot  with  your  best  deliberation  and  heed  come  so 
close  to  any  question  as  your  spontaneous  glance  shall 
bring  you,  whilst  you  rise  from  your  bed,  or  walk 


240  INTELLECT. 

abroad  in  the  morning  after  meditating  the  matter 
before  sleep  on  the  previous  night.  Always  our 
thinking  is  a  pious  reception.  Our  truth  of  thought 
is  therefore  vitiated  as  much  by  too  violent  direction 
given  by  our  will,  as  by  too  great  negligence.  We 
do  not  determine  what  we  will  think.  We  only  open 
our  senses,  clear  away  as  we  can  all  obstruction  from 
the  fact,  and  suffer  the  intellect  to  see.  We  have 
little  control  over  our  thoughts.  We  are  the  prisoners 
of  ideas.  They  catch  us  up  for  moments  into  their 
heaven  and  so  fully  engage  us  that  we  take  no  thought 
for  the  morrow,  gaze  like  children,  without  an  effort 
to  make  them  our  own.  By-and-by  we  fall  out  of 
that  rapture,  bethink  us  where  we  have  been,  what 
we  have  seen,  and  repeat  as  truly  as  we  can  what  we 
have  beheld.  As  far  as  we  can  recall  these  ecstasies 
we  carry  away  in  the  effaceable  memory  the  result, 
and  all  men  and  all  the  ages  confirm  it.  It  is  called 
Truth.  But  the  moment  we  cease  to  report  and 
attempt  to  correct  and  contrive,  it  is  not  truth. 

If  we  consider  what  persons  have  stimulated  and 
profited  us,  we  shall  perceive  the  superiority  of  the 
spontaneous  or  intuitive  principle  over  the  arithmeti 
cal  or  logical.  The  first  always  contains  the  second, 
but  virtual  and  latent.  We  want  in  every  man  a  long 
logic  ;  we  cannot  pardon  the  absence  of  it,  but  it  must 
not  be  spoken.  Logic  is  the  procession  or  propor 
tionate  unfolding  of  the  intuition ;  but  its  virtue  is  as 
silent  method  ;  the  moment  it  would  appear  as  propo 
sitions  and  have  a  separate  value,  it  is  worthless. 

In  every  man's  mind,  some  images,  words  and 
facts  remain,  without  effort  on  his  part  to  imprint 


INTELLECT.  241 

them,  which  others  forget,  and  afterwards  these  illus 
trate  to  him  important  laws.  All  our  progress  is  an 
unfolding,  like  the  vegetable  bud.  You  have  first  an 
instinct,  then  an  opinion,  then  a  knowledge,  as  the 
plant  has  root,  bud  and  fruit.  Trust  the  instinct  to 
the  end,  though  you  can  render  no  reason.  It  is 
vain  to  hurry  it.  By  trusting  it  to  the  end,  it  shall 
ripen  into  truth  and  you  shall  know  why  you  believe. 

Each  mind  has  its  own  method.  A  true  man  never 
acquires  after  college  rules.  What  you  have  aggre 
gated  in  a  natural  manner  surprises  and  delights 
when  it  is  produced.  For  we  cannot  oversee  each 
others  secret.  And  hence  the  differences  between 
men  in  natural  endowment  are  insignificant  in  com 
parison  with  their  common  wealth.  Do  you  think 
the  porter  and  the  cook  have  no  anecdotes,  no  ex 
periences,  no  wonders  for  you?  Everybody  knows 
as  much  as  the  savant.  The  walls  of  rude  minds  are 
scrawled  all  over  with  facts,  with  thoughts.  They 
shall  one  day  bring  a  lantern  and  read  the  inscrip 
tions.  Every  man,  in  the  degree  in  which  he  has 
wit  and  culture,  finds  his  curiosity  inflamed  concern 
ing  the  modes  of  living  and  thinking  of  other  men, 
and  especially  of  those  classes  whose  minds  have  not 
been  subdued  by  the  drill  of  school  education. 

This  instinctive  action  never  ceases  in  a  healthy 
mind,  but  becomes  richer  and  more  frequent  in  its 
informations  through  all  states  of  culture.  At  last 
comes  the  era  of  reflection,  when  we  not  only  ob 
serve,  but  take  pains  to  observe ;  when  we  of  set 
purpose  sit  down  to  consider  an  abstract  truth  ;  when 
we  keep  the  mind's  eye  open  whilst  we  converse, 


242  INTELLECT. 

whilst  we  read,  whilst  we  act,  intent  to  learn  the 
secret  law  of  some  class  of  facts. 

What  is  the  hardest  task  in  the  world?  To  think. 
I  would  put  myself  in  the  attitude  to  look  in  the  eye 
an  abstract  truth,  and  I  cannot.  I  blench  and  with 
draw  on  this  side  and  on  that.  I  seem  to  know  what 
he  meant  who  said,  No  man  can  see  God  face  to  face 
and  live.  For  example,  a  man  explores  the  basis  of 
civil  government.  Let  him  intend  his  mind  without 
respite,  without  rest,  in  one  direction.  His  best  heed 
long  time  avails  him  nothing.  Yet  thoughts  are  flit 
ting  before  him.  We  all  but  apprehend,  we  dimly 
forebode  the  truth.  We  say,  I  will  walk  abroad,  and 
the  truth  will  take  form  and  clearness  to  me.  We  go 
forth,  but  cannot  find  it.  It  seems  as  if  we  needed 
only  the  stillness  and  composed  attitude  of  the 
library  to  seize  the  thought.  But  we  come  in,  and 
are  as  far  from  it  as  at  first.  Then,  in  a  moment, 
and  unannounced,  the  truth  appears.  A  certain 
wandering  light  appears,  and  is  the  distinction,  the 
principle,  we  wanted.  But  the  oracle  comes  because 
we  had  previously  laid  siege  to  the  shrine.  It  seems 
as  if  the  law  of  the  intellect  resembled  that  law  of 
nature  by  which  we  now  inspire,  now  expire  the 
breath ;  by  which  the  heart  now  draws  in,  then  hurls 
out  the  blood,  —  the  law  of  undulation.  So  now  you 
must  labor  with  your  brains,  and  now  you  must  for 
bear  your  activity  and  see  what  the  great  Soul 
showeth. 

Our  intellections  are  mainly  prospective.  The 
immortality  of  man  is  as  legitimately  preached  from 
the  intellections  as  from  the  moral  volitions.  Every 


INTELLECT.  243 

intellection  is  mainly  prospective.  Its  present  value 
is  its  least.  Inspect  what  delights  you  in  Plutarch, 
in  Shakspeare,  in  Cervantes.  Each  truth  that  a 
writer  acquires  is  a  lantern  which  he  instantly  turns 
full  on  what  facts  and  thoughts  lay  already  in  his 
mind,  and  behold,  all  the  mats  and  rubbish  which 
had  littered  his  garret  become  precious.  Every 
trivial  fact  in  his  private  biography  becomes  an  illus 
tration  of  this  new  principle,  revisits  the  day,  and  de 
lights  all  men  by  its  piquancy  and  new  charm.  Men 
say,  where  did  he  get  this  ?  and  think  there  was 
something  divine  in  his  life.  But  no ;  they  have 
myriads  of  facts  just  as  good,  would  they  only  get  a 
lamp  to  ransack  their  attics  withal. 

We  are  all  wise.  The  difference  between  persons 
is  not  in  wisdom  but  in  art.  I  knew,  in  an  academ 
ical  club,  a  person  who  always  deferred  to  me,  who, 
seeing  my  whim  for  writing,  fancied  that  my  ex 
periences  had  somewhat  superior ;  whilst  I  saw  that 
his  experiences  were  as  good  as  mine.  Give  them  to 
me  and  I  would  make  the  same  use  of  them.  He 
held  the  old ;  he  holds  the  new ;  I  had  the  habit  of 
tacking  together  the  old  and*the  new  which  he  did 
not  use  to  exercise.  This  may  hold  in  the  great 
examples.  Perhaps,  if  we  should  meet  Shakspeare 
we  should  not  be  conscious  of  any  steep  inferiority ; 
no,  but  of  a  great  equality,  —  only  that  he  possessed  a 
strange  skill  of  using,  of  classifying  his  facts,  which 
we  lacked.  For  notwithstanding  our  utter  incapacity 
to  produce  anything  like  Hamlet  and  Othello,  see  the 
perfect  reception  this  wit  and  immense  knowledge  of 
life  and  liquid  eloquence  find  in  us  all. 


244  INTELLECT. 

If  you  gather  apples  in  the  sunshine,  or  make  hay, 
or  hoe  corn,  and  then  retire  within  doors  and  shut 
your  eyes  and  press  them  with  your  hand,  you  shall 
still  see  apples  hanging  in  the  bright  light  with 
boughs  and  leaves  thereto,  or  the  tasselled  grass,  or 
the  corn-flags,  and  this  for  five  or  six  hours  after 
wards.  There  lie  the  impressions  on  the  retentive 
organ,  though  you  knew  it  not.  So  lies  the  whole 
series  of  natural  images  with  which  your  life  has  made 
you  acquainted,  in  your  memory,  though  you  know  it 
not,  and  a  thrill  of  passion  flashes  light  on  their  dark 
chamber,  and  the  active  power  seizes  instantly  the  fit 
image,  as  the  word  of  its  momentary  thought. 

It  is  long  ere  we  discover  how  rich  we  are.  Our 
history,  we  are  sure,  is  quite  tame.  We  have  noth 
ing  to  write,  nothing  to  infer.  But  our  wiser  years 
still  run  back  to  the  despised  recollections  of  child 
hood,  and  always  we  are  fishing  up  some  wonderful 
article  out  of  that  pond  ;  until  by-and-by  we  begin  to 
suspect  that  the  biography  of  the  one  foolish  person 
we  know  is,  in  reality,  nothing  less  than  the  miniature 
paraphrase  of  the  hundred  volumes  of  the  Universal 
History.  • 

In  the  intellect  constructive,  which  we  popularly 
designate  by  the  word  Genius,  we  observe  the  same 
balance  of  two  elements  as  in  intellect  receptive. 
The  constructive  intellect  produces  thoughts,  sen 
tences,  poems,  plans,  designs,  systems.  It  is  the 
generation  of  the  mind,  the  marriage  of  thought  with 
nature.  To  genius  must  always  go  two  gifts,  the 
thought  and  the  publication.  The  first  is  revelation, 
always  a  miracle,  which  no  frequency  of  occurrence 


INTELLECT.  245 

or  incessant  study  can  ever  familiarize,  but  which 
must  always  leave  the  inquirer  stupid  with  wonder. 
It  is  the  advent  of  truth  into  the  world,  a  form  of 
thought  now  for  the  first  time  bursting  into  the  uni 
verse,  a  child  of  the  old  eternal  soul,  a  piece  of  gen 
uine  and  immeasurable  greatness.  It  seems,  for  the 
time,  to  inherit  all  that  has  yet  existed  and  to  dictate 
to  the  unborn.  It  affects  every  thought  of  man  and  goes 
to  fashion  every  institution.  But  to  make  it  available 
it  needs  a  vehicle  or  art  by  which  it  is  conveyed  to 
men.  To  be  communicable  it  must  become  picture 
or  sensible  object.  We  must  learn  the  language  of 
facts.  The  most  wonderful  inspirations  die  with 
their  subject  if  he  has  no  hand  to  paint  them  to  the 
senses.  The  ray  of  light  passes  invisible  through 
space  and  only  when  it  falls  on  an  object  is  it  seen. 
When  the  spiritual  energy  is  directed  on  something 
outward,  then  is  it  a  thought.  The  relation  between 
it  and  you  first  makes  you,  the  value  of  you,  appar 
ent  to  me.  The  rich  inventive  genius  of  the  painter 
must  be  smothered  and  lost  for  want  of  the  power  of 
drawing,  and  in  our  happy  hours  we  should  be  inex 
haustible  poets  if  once  we  could  break  through  the 
silence  into  adequate  rhyme.  As  all  men  have  some 
access  to  primary  truth,  so  all  have  some  art  or 
power  of  communication  in  their  head,  but  only 
in  the  artist  does  it  descend  into  the  hand.  There 
is  an  inequality,  whose  laws  we  do  not  yet  know, 
between  two  men  and  between  two  moments  of 
the  same  man,  in  respect  to  this  faculty.  In  common 
hours  we  have  the  same  facts  as  in  the  uncommon  or 
inspired,  but  they  do  not  sit  for  their  portraits  ;  they 


246  INTELLECT. 

are  not  detached,  but  lie  in  a  web.  The  thought 
of  genius  is  spontaneous  ;  but  the  power  of  picture  or 
expression,  in  the  most  enriched  and  flowing  nature, 
implies  a  mixture  of  will,  a  certain  control  over  the 
spontaneous  states,  without  which  no  production  is 
possible.  It  is  a  conversion  of  all  nature  into  the 
rhetoric  of  thought,  under  the  eye  of  judgment,  with 
a  strenuous  exercise  of  choice.  And  yet  the  imagina 
tive  vocabulary  seems  to  be  spontaneous  also.  It 
does  not  flow  from  experience  only  or  mainly,  but 
from  a  richer  source.  Not  by  any  conscious  imita 
tion  of  particular  forms  are  the  grand  strokes  of  the 
painter  executed,  but  by  repairing  to  the  fountain- 
head  of  all  forms  in  his  mind.  Who  is  the  first 
drawing-master?  Without  instruction  we  know  very 
well  the  ideal  of  the  human  form.  A  child  knows  if 
an  arm  or  a  leg  be  distorted  in  a  picture  ;  if  the  atti 
tude  be  natural  or  grand  or  mean ;  though  he  has 
never  received  any  instruction  in  drawing  or  heard 
any  conversation  on  the  subject,  nor  can  himself  draw 
with  correctness  a  single  feature.  A  good  form  strikes 
all  eyes  pleasantly,  long  before  they  have  any  science 
on  the  subject,  and  a  beautiful  face  sets  twenty  hearts 
in  palpitation,  prior  to  all  consideration  of  the 
mechanical  proportions  of  the  features  and  head. 
We  may  owe  to  dreams  some  light  on  the  fountain 
of  this  skill ;  for  as  soon  as  we  let  our  will  go  and  let 
the  unconscious  states  ensue,  see  what  cunning 
draughtsmen  we  are!  We  entertain  ourselves  with 
wonderful  forms  of  men,  of  women,  of  animals,  of 
gardens,  of  woods  and  of  monsters,  and  the  mystic 
pencil  wherewith  we  then  draw  has  no  awkwardness 


INTELLECT.  247 

or  inexperience,  no  meagreness  or  poverty ;  it  can 
design  well  and  group  well;  its  composition  is  full 
of  art,  its  colors  are  well  laid  on  and  the  whole  can 
vas  which  it  paints  is  life-like  and  apt  to  touch  us 
with  terror,  with  tenderness,  with  desire  and  with 
grief.  Neither  are  the  artist's  copies  from  experience 
ever  mere  copies,  but  always  touched  and  softened 
by  tints  from  this  ideal  domain. 

The  conditions  essential  to  a  constructive  mind  do 
not  appear  to  be  so  often  combined  but  that  a  good 
sentence  or  verse  remains  fresh  and  memorable  for 
a  long  time.  Yet  when  we  write  with  ease  and 
come  out  into  the  free  air  of  thought,  we  seem  to  be 
assured  that  nothing  is  easier  than  to  continue  this 
communication  at  pleasure.  Up,  down,  around,  the 
kingdom  of  thought  has  no  enclosures,  but  the  Muse 
makes  us  free  of  her  city.  Well,  the  world  has  a 
million  writers.  One  would  think  then  that  good 
thought  would  be  as  familiar  as  air  and  water,  and 
the  gifts  of  each  new  hour  would  exclude  the  last. 
Yet  we  can  count  all  our  good  books ;  nay,  I  remem 
ber  any  beautiful  verse  for  twenty  years.  It  is  true 
that  the  discerning  intellect  of  the  world  is  always 
greatly  in  advance  of  the  creative,  so  that  there  are 
many  competent  judges  of  the  best  book,  and  few 
writers  of  the  best  books.  But  some  of  the  condi 
tions  of  intellectual  construction  are  of  rare  oc 
currence.  The  intellect  is  a  whole  and  demands 
integrity  in  every  work.  This  is  resisted  equally  by 
a  man's  devotion  to  a  single  thought  and  by  his 
ambition  to  combine  too  many. 

Truth  is  our  element  of  life,  yet  if  a  man  fasten 


248  INTELLECT. 

his  attention  on  a  single  aspect  of  truth  and  apply 
himself  to  that  alone  for  a  long  time,  the  truth  be 
comes  distorted  and  not  itself  but  falsehood ;  herein 
resembling  the  air,  which  is  our  natural  element  and 
the  breath  of  our  nostrils,  but  if  a  stream  of  the 
same  be  directed  on  the  body  for  a  time,  it  causes 
cold,  fever,  and  even  death.  How  wearisome  the 
grammarian,  the  phrenologist,  the  political  or  re 
ligious  fanatic,  or  indeed  any  possessed  mortal  whost 
balance  is  lost  by  the  exaggeration  of  a  single  topic. 
It  is  incipient  insanity.  Every  thought  is  a  prison 
also.  I  cannot  see  what  you  see,  because  I  am 
caught  up  by  a  strong  wind  and  blown  so  far  in  one 
direction  that  I  am  out  of  the  hoop  of  your  horizon. 

Is  it  any  better  if  the  student,  to  avoid  this  offence 
and  to  liberalize  himself,  aims  to  make  a  mechanical 
whole  of  history,  or  science,  or  philosophy,  by  a 
numerical  addition  of  all  the  facts  that  fall  within  his 
vision?  The  world  refuses  to  be  analyzed  by  addi 
tion  and  subtraction.  When  we  are  young  we  spend 
much  time  and  pains  in  filling  our  note-books  with 
all  definitions  of  Religion,  Love,  Poetry,  Politics, 
Art,  in  the  hope  that  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  we 
shall  have  condensed  into  our  encyclopaedia  the  net 
value  of  all  the  theories  at  which  the  world  has  yet 
arrived.  But  year  after  year  our  tables  get  no  com 
pleteness,  and  at  last  we  discover  that  our  curve  is  a 
parabola,  whose  arcs  will  never  meet. 

Neither  by  detachment,  neither  by  aggregation  is 
the  integrity  of  the  intellect  transmitted  to  its  works, 
but  by  a  vigilance  which  brings  the  intellect  in  its 
greatness  and  best  state  to  operate  every  moment. 


INTELLECT.  249 

It  must  have  the  same  wholeness  which  nature  has. 
Although  no  diligence  can  rebuild  the  universe  in  a 
model  by  the  best  accumulation  or  disposition  of 
details,  yet  does  the  world  reappear  in  miniature  in 
every  event,  so  that  all  the  laws  of  nature  may  be 
read  in  the  smallest  fact.  The  intellect  must  have 
the  like  perfection  in  its  apprehension  and  in  its 
works.  For  this  reason,  an  index  or  mercury  of 
intellectual  proficiency  is  the  perception  of  identity. 
We  talk  with  accomplished  persons  who  appear  to 
be  strangers  in  nature.  The  cloud,  the  tree,  the 
turf,  the  bird,  are  not  theirs,  have  nothing  of  them ; 
the  world  is  only  their  lodging  and  table.  But  the 
poet,  whose  verses  are  to  be  spheral  and  complete, 
is  one  whom  nature  cannot  deceive,  whatsoever  face 
of  strangeness  she  may  put  on.  He  feels  a  strict 
consanguinity,  and  detects  more  likeness  than  variety 
in  all  her  changes.  We  are  stung  by  the  desire  for 
new  thought,  but  when  we  receive  a  new  thought  it 
is  only  the  old  thought  with  a  new  face,  and  though 
we  make  it  our  own  we  instantly  crave  another ;  we 
are  not  really  enriched.  For  the  truth  was  in  us 
before  it  was  reflected  to  us  from  natural  objects ; 
and  the  profound  genius  will  cast  the  likeness  of  all 
creatures  into  every  product  of  his  wit. 

But  if  the  constructive  powers  are  rare  and  it  is 
given  to  few  men  to  be  poets,  yet  every  man  is  a 
receiver  of  this  descending  holy  ghost,  and  may  well 
study  the  laws  of  its  influx.  Exactly  parallel  is  the 
whole  rule  of  intellectual  duty  to  the  rule  of  moral 
duty.  A  self-denial  no  less  austere  than  the  saint's 
is  demanded  of  the  scholar.  He  must  worship  truth, 


250  INTELLECT. 

and  forego  all  things  for  that,  and  choose  defeat  and 
pain,  so  that  his  treasure  in  thought  is  thereby  aug 
mented. 

God  offers  to  every  mind  its  choice  between  truth 
and  repose.  Take  which  you  please,  —  you  can  never 
have  both.  Between  these,  as  a  pendulum,  man 
oscillates.  He  in  whom  the.  love  of  repose  predomi 
nates  will  accept  the  first  creed,  the  first  philosophy, 
the  first  political  party  he  meets, — most  likely  his 
father's.  He  gets  rest,  commodity  and  reputation; 
but  he  shuts  the  door  of  truth.  He  in  whom  the  love 
of  truth  predominates  will  keep  himself  aloof  from  all 
moorings,  and  afloat.  He  will  abstain  from  dog 
matism,  and  recognize  all  the  opposite  negations 
between  which,  as  walls,  his  being  is  swung.  He 
submits  to  the  inconvenience  of  suspense  and  imper 
fect  opinion,  but  he  is  a  candidate  for  truth,  as  the 
other  is  not,  and  respects  the  highest  law  of  his 
being. 

The  circle  of  the  green  earth  he  must  measure  with 
his  shoes  to  find  the  man  who  can  yield  him  truth. 
He  shall  then  know  that  there  is  somewhat  more 
blessed  and  great  in  hearing  than  in  speaking. 
Happy  is  the  hearing  man :  unhappy  the  speaking 
man.  As  long  as  I  hear  truth  I  am  bathed  by  a 
beautiful  element  and  am  not  conscious  of  any  limits 
to  my  nature.  The  suggestions  are  thousandfold 
that  I  hear  and  see.  The  waters  of  the  great  deep 
have  ingress  and  egress  to  the  soul.  But  if  I  speak, 
I  define,  I  confine  and  am  less.  When  Socrates 
speaks,  Lysis  and  Menexenus  are  afflicted  by  no 
shame  that  they  do  not  speak.  They  also  are  good. 


INTELLECT.  251 

He  likewise  defers  to  them,  loves  them,  whilst  he 
speaks.  Because  a  true  and  natural  man  contains 
and  is  the  same  truth  which  an  eloquent  man  articu 
lates  :  but  in  the  eloquent  man,  because  he  can  artic 
ulate  it,  it  seems  something  the  less  to  reside,  and  he 
turns  to  these  silent  beautiful  with  the  more  inclina 
tion  and  respect.  The  ancient  sentence  said,  Let  us 
be  silent,  for  so  are  the  gods.  Silence  is  a  solvent 
that  destroys  personality,  and  gives  us  leave  to  be 
great  and  universal.  Every  man's  progress  is  through 
a  succession  of  teachers,  each  of  whom  seems  at  the 
time  to  have  a  superlative  influence,  but  it  at  last  gives 
place  to  a  new.  Frankly  let  him  accept  it  all.  Jesus 
says,  Leave  father,  mother,  house  and  lands,  and  fol 
low  me.  Who  leaves  all,  receives  more.  This  is  as 
true  intellectually  as  morally.  Each  new  mind  we 
approach  seems  to  require  an  abdication  of  all  our 
past  and  present  possessions.  A  new  doctrine  seems 
at  first  a  subversion  of  all  our  opinions,  tastes,  and 
manner  of  living.  Such  has  Swedenborg,  such  has 
Kant,  such  has  Coleridge,  such  has  Cousin  seemed 
to  many  young  men  in  this  country.  Take  thankfully 
and  heartily  all  they  can  give.  Exhaust  them,  wrestle 
with  them,  let  them  not  go  until  their  blessing  be 
won,  and  after  a  short  season  the  dismay  will  be  over 
past,  the  excess  of  influence  withdrawn,  and  they  will 
be  no  longer  an  alarming  meteor,  but  one  more  bright 
star  shining  serenely  in  your  heaven  and  blending  its 
light  with  all  your  day. 

But  whilst  he  gives  himself  up  unreservedly  to  that 
which  draws  him,  because  that  is  his  own,  he  is,  to 
refuse  himself  to  that  which  draws  him  not,  whatso- 


252  INTELLECT. 

ever  fame  and  authority  may  attend  it,  because  it  is 
not  his  own.  Entire  self-reliance  belongs  to  the  intel 
lect.  One  soul  is  a  counterpoise  of  all  souls,  as  a 
capillary  column  of  water  is  a  balance  for  the  sea.  It 
must  treat  things  and  books  and  sovereign  genius  as 
itself  also  a  sovereign.  If  yEschylus  be  that  man  he 
is  taken  for,  he  has  not  yet  done  his  office  when  he 
has  educated  the  learned  of  Europe  for  a  thousand 
years.  He  is  now  to  approve  himself  a  master  of 
delight  to  me  also.  If  he  cannot  do  that,  all  his  fame 
shall  avail  him  nothing  with  me.  I  were  a  fool  not 
to  sacrifice  a  thousand  ^Eschyluses  to  my  intellectual 
integrity.  Especially  take  the  same  ground  in  regard 
to  abstract  truth,  the  science  of  the  mind.  The 
Bacon,  the  Spinoza,  the  Hume,  Schelling,  Kant, 
or  whosoever  propounds  to  you  a  philosophy  of  the 
mind,  is  only  a  more  or  less  awkward  translator  of 
things  in  your  consciousness  which  you  have  also 
your  way  of  seeing,  perhaps  of  denominating.  Say 
then,  instead  of  too  timidly  poring  into  his  obscure 
sense,  that  he  has  not  succeeded  in  rendering  back  to 
you  your  consciousness.  He  has  not  succeeded ; 
now  let  another  try.  If  Plato  cannot,  perhaps  Spi 
noza  will.  If  Spinoza  cannot,  then  perhaps  Kant. 
Any  how,  when  at  last  it  is  done,  you  will  find  it  is 
no  recondite,  but  a  simple,  natural,  common  state 
which  the  writer  restores  to  you. 

But  let  us  end  these  didactics.  I  will  not,  though 
the  subject  might  provoke  it,  speak  to  the  open  ques 
tion  between  Truth  and  Love.  I  shall  not  presume 
to  interfere  in  the  old  politics  of  the  skies;  "The 
cherubim  know  most ;  the  serauhim  love  most."  The 


INTELLECT.  253 

gods  shall  settle  their  own  quarrels.  But  I  cannot 
recite,  even  thus  rudely,  laws  of  the  intellect,  without 
remembering  that  lofty  and  sequestered  class  who 
have  been  its  prophets  and  oracles,  the  highpriesthood 
of  the  pure  reason,  the  Trismegisti,  the  expounders 
of  the  principles  of  thought  from  age  to  age.  When 
at  long  intervals  we  turn  over  their  abstruse  pages, 
wonderful  seems  the  calm  and  grand  air  of  these  few, 
these  great  spiritual  lords  who  have  walked  in  the 
world,  —  these  of  the  old  religion,  —  dwelling  in  a 
worship  which  makes  the  sanctities  of  Christianity 
\QQ\Lparvenues  and  popular;  for  "persuasion  is  in 
soul,  but  necessity  is  in  intellect.1"  This  band  of 
grandees,  Hermes,  Heraclitus,  Empedocles,  Plato,  Plo- 
tinus,  Olympiodorus,  Proclus,  Synesius  and  the  rest, 
have  somewhat  so  vast  in  their  logic,  so  primary  in 
their  thinking,  that  it  seems  antecedent  to  all  the  ordi 
nary  distinctions  of  rhetoric  and  literature,  and  to  be 
at  once  poetry  and  music  and  dancing  and  astronomy 
and  mathematics.  I  am  present  at  the  sowing  of 
the  seed  of  the  world.  With  a  geometry  of  sunbeams 
the  soul  lays  the  foundations  of  nature.  The  truth 
and  grandeur  of  their  thought  is  proved  by  its  scope 
and  applicability,  for  it  commands  the  entire  schedule 
and  inventory  of  things  for  its  illustration.  But  what 
marks  its  elevation  and  has  even  a  comic  look  to  us, 
is  the  innocent  serenity  with  which  these  babe-like 
Jupiters  sit  in  their  clouds,  and  from  age  to  age 
prattle  to  each  other  and  to  no  contemporary.  Well 
assured  that  their  speech  is  intelligible  and  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world,  they  add  thesis  to  thesis, 
without  a  moment's  heed  of  the  universal  astonish- 


254  INTELLECT. 

ment  of  the  human  race  below,  who  do  not  compre 
hend  their  plainest  argument ;  nor  do  they  ever  relent 
so  much  as  to  insert  a  popular  or  explaining  sentence, 
nor  testify  the  least  displeasure  or  petulance  at  the 
dulness  of  their  amazed  auditory.  The  angels  are  so 
enamored  of  the  language  that  is  spoken  in  heaven 
that  they  will  not  distort  their  lips  with  the  hissing 
and  unmusical  dialects  of  men,  but  speak  their  own, 
whether  there  be  any  who  understand  it  or  not. 


ESSAY   XII, 

ART. 

BECAUSE  the  soul  is  progressive,  it  never  quite 
repeats  itself,  but  in  every  act  attempts  the  produc 
tion  of  a  new  and  fairer  whole.  This  appears  in 
works  both  of  the  useful  and  fine  arts,  if  we  employ 
the  popular  distinction  of  works  according  to  their 
aim  either  at  use  or  beauty.  Thus  in  our  fine  arts, 
n/)t  imitation  but  creation  is  the  aim.  In  landscapes 
the  painter  should  give  the  suggestion  of  a  fairer 
creation  than  we  know.  The  details,  the  prose  of 
nature  he  should  omit  and  give  us  only  the  spirit 
and  splendor.  He  should  know  that  the  landscape 
has  beauty  for  his  eye  because  it  expresses  a  thought 
which  is  to  him  good :  and  this  because  the  same 
power  which  sees  through  his  eyes  is  seen  in  that 
spectacle ;  and  he  will  come  to  value  the  expression 
of  nature  and  not  nature  itself,  and  so  exalt  in  his 
copy  the  features  that  please  him.  He  will  give  the 
gloom  of  gloom  and  the  sunshine  of  sunshine.  In 
a  portrait  he  must  inscribe  the  character  and  not  the 
features,  and  must  esteem  the  man  who  sits  to  him 
as  himself  only  an  imperfect  picture  or  likeness  of  the 
aspiring  original  within. 

What  is  that  abridgement  and  selection  we  ob- 

255 


256  ART. 

serve  in  all  spiritual  activity,  but  itself  the  creative 
impulse?  for  it  is  the  inlet  of  that  higher  illumina 
tion  which  teaches  to  convey  a  larger  sense  by 
simpler  symbols.  What  is  a  man  but  nature's  finer 
success  in  self-explication?  What  is  a  man  but 
a  finer  and  compacter  landscape  than  the  horizon 
figures ;  nature's  eclecticism?  and  what  is  his  speech, 
his  love  of  painting,  love  of  nature,  but  a  still  finer 
success?  all  the  weary  miles  and  tons  of  space  and 
bulk  left  out,  and  the  spirit  or  moral  of  it  contracted 
into  a  musical  word,  or  the  most  cunning  stroke  of 
the  pencil? 

But  the  artist  must  employ  the  symbols  in  use  in 
his  day  and  nation  to  convey  his  enlarged  sense  to 
his  fellow-men.  Thus  the  new  in  art  is  always 
formed  out  of  the  old.  The  Genius  of  the  Hour 
always  sets  his  ineffaceable  seal  on  the  work  and 
gives  it  an  inexpressible  charm  for  the  imagination. 
As  far  as  the  spiritual  character  of  the  period  over 
powers  the  artist  and  finds  expression  in  his  work, 
so  far  it  will  always  retain  a  certain  grandeur,  and 
will  represent  to  future  beholders  the  Unknown,  the 
Inevitable,  the  Divine.  No  man  can  quite  exclude 
this  element  of  Necessity  from  his  labor.  No  man 
can  quite  emancipate  himself  from  his  age  and 
country,  or  produce  a  model  in  which  the  education, 
the  religion,  the  politics,  usages  and  arts  of  his 
times  shall  have  no  share.  Though  he  were  never 
so  original,  never  so  wilful  and  fantastic,  he  cannot 
wipe  out  of  his  work  every  trace  of  the  thoughts 
amidst  which  it  grew.  The  very  avoidance  betrays 
the  usage  he  avoids.  Above  his  will  and  out  of  his 


ART.  257 

sight  he  is  necessitated  by  the  air  he  breathes  and 
the  idea  on  which  he  and  his  contemporaries  live  and 
toil,  to  share  the  manner  of  his  times,  without  know 
ing  what  that  manner  is.  Now  that  which  is  inevit 
able  in  the  work  has  a  higher  charm  than  individual 
talent  can  ever  give,  inasmuch  as  the  artist's  pen  or 
chisel  seems  to  have  been  held  and  guided  by  a 
gigantic  hand  to  inscribe  a  line  in  the  history  of  the 
human  race.  This  circumstance  gives  a  value  to  the 
Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  to  the  Indian,  Chinese  and 
Mexican  idols,  however  gross  and  shapeless.  They 
denote  the  height  of  the  human  soul  in  that  hour, 
and  were  not  fantastic,  but  sprung  from  a  necessity 
as  deep  as  the  world.  Shall  I  now  add  that  the 
whole  extant  product  of  the  plastic  arts  has  herein 
its  highest  value,  as  history ;  as  a  stroke  drawn  in 
the  portrait  of  that  fate,  perfect  and  beautiful,  ac 
cording  to  whose  ordinations  all  beings  advance  to 
their  beatitude? 

Thus,  historically  viewed,  it  has  been  the  office 
of  art  to  educate  the  perception  of  beauty.  We  are 
immersed  in  beauty,  but  our  eyes  have  no  clear 
vision.  It  needs,  by  the  exhibition  of  single  traits, 
to  assist  and  lead  the  dormant  taste.  We  carve  and 
paint,  or  we  behold  what  is  carved  and  painted,  as 
students  of  the  mystery  of  Form.  The  virtue  of 
art  lies  in  detachment,  in  sequestering  one  object 
from  the  embarrassing  variety.  Until  one  thing 
comes  out  from  the  connection  of  things,  there  can 
be  enjoyment,  contemplation,  but  no  thought.  Our 
happiness  and  unhappiness  are  unproductive.  The 
infant  lies  in  a  pleasing  trance,  but  his  individual 


258  ART. 

character  and  his  practical  power  depend  on  his 
daily  progress  in  the  separation  of  things,  and  deal 
ing  with  one  at  a  time.  Love  and  all  the  passions 
concentrate  all  existence  around  a  single  form.  It 
is  the  habit  of  certain  minds  to  give  an  all-exclud 
ing  fulness  to  the  object,  the  thought,  the  word  they 
alight  upon,  and  to  make  that  for  the  time  the  deputy 
of  the  world.  These  are  the  artists,  the  orators,  the 
leaders  of  society.  The  power  to  detach  and  to 
magnify  by  detaching  is  the  essence  of  rhetoric  in 
the  hands  of  the  orator  and  the  poet.  This  rhetoric, 
or  power  to  fix  the  momentary  eminency  of  an 
object,  so  remarkable  in  Burke,  in  Byron,  in  Carlyle, 
—  the  painter  and  sculptor  exhibit  in  color  and  in 
stone.  The  power  depends  on  the  depth  of  the 
artist's  insight  of  that  object  he  contemplates.  For 
every  object  has  its  root's  in  central  nature,  and  may 
of  course  be  so  exhibited  to  us  as  to  represent  the 
world.  Therefore  each  work  of  genius  is  the  tyrant 
of  the  hour  and  concentrates  attention  on  itself. 
For  the  time,  it  is  the  only  thing  worth  naming,  to 
do  that,  —  be  it  a  sonnet,  an  opera,  a  landscape,  a 
statue,  an  oration,  the  plan  of  a  temple,  of  a  cam 
paign,  or  of  a  voyage  of  discovery.  Presently  we 
pass  to  some  other  object,  which  rounds  itself  into  a 
whole  as  did  the  first ;  for  example  a  well  laid  gar 
den  :  and  nothing  seems  worth  doing  but  the  laying 
out  of  gardens.  I  should  think  fire  the  best  thing  in 
the  world,  if  I  were  not  acquainted  with  air,  and 
water,  and  earth.  For  it  is  the  right  and  property  of 
all  natural  objects,  of  all  genuine  talents,  of  all  native 
properties  whatsoever,  to  be  for  their  moment  the 


ART.  259 

top  of  the  world.  A  squirrel  leaping  from  bough  to 
bough  and  making  the  wood  but  one  wide  tree  for 
his  pleasure,  fills  the  eye  not  less  than  a  lion,  is  beau 
tiful,  self-sufficing,  and  stands  then  and  there  for 
nature.  A  good  ballad  draws  my  ear  and  heart 
whilst  I  listen,  as  much  as  an  epic  has  done  before. 
A  dog,  drawn  by  a  master,  or  a  litter  of  pigs,  satisfies 
and  is  a  reality  not  less  than  the  frescoes  of  Angelo. 
From  this  succession  of  excellent  objects  learn  we  at 
last  the  immensity  of  the  world,  the  opulence  of 
human  nature,  which  can  run  out  to  infinitude  in  any 
direction.  But  I  also  learn  that  what  astonished  and 
fascinated  me  in  the  first  work,  astonished  me  in  the 
second  work  also ;  that  excellence  of  all  things  is 
one. 

The  office  of  painting  and  sculpture  seems  to  be 
merely  initial.  The  best  pictures  can  easily  tell  us 
their  last  secret.  The  best  pictures  are  rude  draughts 
of  a  few  of  the  miraculous  dots  and  lines  and  dyes 
which  make  up  the  ever-changing  "  landscape  with 
figures1'  amidst  which  we  dwell.  Painting  seems  to 
be  to  the  eye  what  dancing  is  to  the  limbs.  When 
that  has  educated  the  frame  to  self-possession,  to 
nimbleness,  to  grace,  the  steps  of  the  dancing-mas 
ter  are  better  forgotten ;  so  painting  teaches  me  the 
splendor  of  color  and  the  expression  of  form,  and  as 
I  see  many  pictures  and  higher  genius  in  the  art,  I 
see  the  boundless  opulence  of  the  pencil,  the  indiffer- 
ency  in  which  the  artist  stands  free  to  choose  out  of 
the  possible  forms.  If  he  can  draw  every  thing,  why 
draw  any  thing?  and  then  is  my  eye  opened  to  the 
eternal  picture  which  nature  paints  in  the  street,  with 


260  ART. 

moving  men  and  children,  beggars  and  fine  ladies, 
draped  in  red  and  green  and  blue  and  gray ;  long 
haired,  grizzled,  white-faced,  black-faced,  wrinkled, 
giant,  dwarf,  expanded,  elfish,  —  capped  and  based 
by  heaven,  earth  and  sea. 

A  gallery  of  sculpture  teaches  more  austerely  the 
same  lesson.  As  picture  teaches  the  coloring,  so 
sculpture  the  anatomy  of  form.  When  I  have  seen 
fine  statues  and  afterwards  enter  a  public  assembly,  I 
understand  well  what  he  meant  who  said,  "  When  I 
have  been  reading  Homer,  all  men  look  like  giants." 
I  too  see  that  painting  and  sculpture  are  gymnastics 
of  the  eye,  training  to  the  niceties  and  curiosities  of 
its  function.  There  is  no  statue  like  this  living  man, 
with  his  infinite  advantage  over  all  ideal  sculpture, 
of  perpetual  variety.  What  a  gallery  of  art  have  I 
here  !  No  mannerist  made  these  varied  groups  and 
diverse  original  single  figures.  Here  is  the  artist 
himself  improvising,  grim  and  glad,  at  his  block. 
Now  one  thought  strikes  him,  now  another,  and  with 
each  moment  he  alters  the  whole  air,  attitude  and 
expression  of  his  clay.  Away  with  your  nonsense  of 
oil  and  easels,  of  marble  and  chisels :  except  to  open 
your  eyes  to  the  witchcraft  of  eternal  art,  they  are 
hypocritical  rubbish. 

The  reference  of  all  production  at  last  to  an  abo 
riginal  Power  explains  the  traits  common  to  all  works 
of  the  highest  art,  that  they  are  universally  intelligi 
ble  ;  that  they  restore  to  us  the  simplest  states  of 
mind ;  and  are  religious.  Since  what  skill  is  therein 
shown  is  the  reappearance  of  the  original  soul,  a  jet  of 
pure  light,  it  should  produce  a  similar  impression  to 


ART.  261 

that  made  by  natural  objects.  In  happy  hours, 
nature  appears  to  us  one  with  art ;  art  perfected,  — 
the  work  of  genius.  And  the  individual  in  whom 
simple  tastes  and  susceptibility  to  all  the  great  human 
influences  overpowers  the  accidents  of  a  local  and 
special  culture,  is  the  best  critic  of  art.  Though  we 
travel  the  world  over  to  find  the  beautiful,  we  must 
carry  it  with  us,  or  we  find  it  not.  The  best  of 
beauty  is  a  finer  charm  than  skill  in  surfaces,  in  out 
lines,  or  rules  of  art  can  ever  teach,  namely  a  radia 
tion  from  the  work  of  art,  of  human  character,  —  a 
wonderful  expression  through  stone,  or  canvas,  or 
musical  sound,  of  the  deepest  and  simplest  attributes 
of  our  nature,  and  therefore  most  intelligible  at  last 
to  those  souls  which  have  these  attributes.  In  the 
sculptures  of  the  Greeks,  in  the  masonry  of  the  Ro 
mans,  and  in  the  pictures  of  the  Tuscan  and  Vene 
tian  masters,  the  highest  charm  is  the  universal  lan 
guage  they  speak.  A  confession  of  moral  nature,  of 
purity,  love,  and  hope,  breathes  from  them  all.  That 
which  we  carry  to  them,  the  same  we  bring  back 
more  fairly  illustrated  in  the  memory.  The  traveller 
who  visits  the  Vatican  and  passes  from  chamber  to 
chamber  through  galleries  of  statues,  vases,  sarcoph 
agi  and  candelabra,  through  all  forms  of  beauty  cut 
in  the  richest  materials,  is  in  danger  of  forgetting 
the  simplicity  of  the  principles  out  of  which  they 
all  sprung,  arid  that  they  had  their  origin  from 
thoughts  and  laws  in  his  own  breast.  He  studies 
the  technical  rules  on  these  wonderful  remains,  but 
forgets  that  these  works  were  not  always  thus  con 
stellated ;  that  they  are  the  contributions  of  many 


262  ART. 

ages  and  many  countries  ;  that  each  came  out  of  the 
solitary  workshop  of  one  artist,  who  toiled  perhaps 
in  ignorance  of  the  existence  of  other  sculpture, 
created  his  work  without  other  model  save  life, 
household  life,  and  the  sweet  and  smart  of  personal 
relations,  of  beating  hearts,  and  meeting  eyes ;  of 
poverty  and  necessity  and  hope  and  fear.  These 
were  his  inspirations,  and  these  are  the  effects  he 
carries  home  to  your  heart  and  mind.  In  proportion 
to  his  force,  the  artist  will  find  in  his  work  an  outlet 
for  his  proper  character.  He  must  not  be  in  any 
manner  pinched  or  hindered  by  his  material,  but 
through  his  necessity  of  imparting  himself  the  ada 
mant  will  be  wax  in  his  hands,  and  will  allow  an 
adequate  communication  of  himself,  in  his  full  stature 
and  proportion.  Not  a  conventional  nature  and  cul 
ture  need  he  cumber  himself  with,  nor  ask  what  is  the 
mode  in  Rome  or  in  Paris,  but  that  house  and 
weather  and  manner  of  living  which  poverty  and  the 
fate  of  birth  have  made  at  once  so  odious  and  so 
dear,  in  the  gray  unpainted  wood  cabin,  on  the  cor 
ner  of  a  New  Hampshire  farm,  or  in  the  log  hut  of 
the  backwoods,  or  in  the  narrow  lodging  where  he 
has  endured  the  constraints  and  seeming  of  a  city 
poverty,  —  will  serve  as  well  as  any  other  condition 
as  the  symbol  of  a  thought  which  pours  itself  indiffer 
ently  through  all. 

I  remember  when  in  my  younger  days  I  had  heard 
of  the  wonders  of  Italian  painting,  I  fancied  the  great 
pictures  would  be  great  strangers ;  some  surprising 
combination  of  color  and  form  ;  a  foreign  wonder, 
barbaric  pearl  and  gold,  like  the  spontoons  and  stand- 


ART.  263 

ards  of  the  militia,  which  plays  such  pranks  in  the 
eyes  and  imaginations  of  schoolboys.  I  was  to  see 
and  acquire  I  knew  not  what.  When  I  came  at  last 
to  Rome  and  saw  with  eyes  the  pictures,  I  found  that 
genius  left  to  novices  the  gay  and  fantastic  and  osten 
tatious,  and  itself  pierced  directly  to  the  simple  and 
true  ;  that  it  was  familiar  and  sincere  ;  that  it  was  the 
old,  eternal  fact  I  had  met  already  in  so  many  forms  ; 
unto  which  I  lived ;  that  it  was  the  plain  you  and  me 
I  knew  so  well,  —  had  left  at  home  in  so  many  con 
versations.  I  had  the  same  experience  already  in  a 
church  at  Naples.  There  I  saw  that  nothing  was 
changed  with  me  but  the  place,  and  said  to  myself,  — 
44  Thou  foolish  child,  hast  thou  come  out  hither,  over 
four  thousand  miles  of  salt  water,  to  find  that  which 
was  perfect  to  thee  there  at  home  ? "  —  that  fact  I  saw 
again  in  the  Academmia  at  Naples,  in  the  chambers 
of  sculpture,  and  yet  again  when  I  came  to  Rome  and 
to  the  paintings  of  Raphael,  Angelo,  Sacchi,  Titian, 
and  Leonardo  da  Vinci.  *•  What,  old  mole  !  workest 
thou  in  the  earth  so  fast?"  It  had  travelled  by  my 
side :  that  which  I  fancied  I  had  left  in  Boston  was 
here  in  the  Vatican,  and  again  at  Milan  and  at  Paris, 
and  made  all  travelling  ridiculous  as  a  treadmill.  I 
now  require  this  of  all  pictures,  that  they  domesticate 
me,  not  that  they  dazzle  me.  Pictures  must  not  be 
too  picturesque.  Nothing  astonishes  men  so  much  as 
common  sense  and  plain  dealing.  All  great  actions 
have  been  simple,  and  all  great  pictures  are. 

The  Transfiguration,  by  Raphael,  is  an  eminent 
example  of  this  peculiar  merit.  A  calm  benignant 
beauty  shines  over  all  this  picture,  and  goes  directly 


264  ART. 

to  the  heart.  It  seems  almost  to  call  you  by  name. 
The  sweet  and  sublime  face  of  Jesus  is  beyond  praise, 
yet  how  it  disappoints  all  florid  expectations  !  This 
familiar,  simple,  home-speaking  countenance  is  as  if 
one  should  meet  a  friend.  The  knowledge  of  picture- 
dealers  has  its  value,  but  listen  not  to  their  criticism 
when  your  heart  is  touched  by  genius.  It  was  not 
painted  for  them,  it  was  painted  for  you;  for  such  as 
had  eyes  capable  of  being  touched  by  simplicity  and 
lofty  emotions. 

Yet  when  we  have  said  all  our  fine  things  about  the 
arts,  we  must  end  with  a  frank  confession  that  the 
arts,  as  we  know  them,  are  but  initial.  Our  best 
praise  is  given  to  what  they  aimed  and  promised,  not 
to  the  actual  result.  He  has  conceived  meanly  of  the 
resources  of  man,  who  believes  that  the  best  age  of 
production  is  past.  The  real  value  of  the  Iliad  or  the 
Transfiguration  is  as  signs  of  power ;  billows  or  ripples 
they  are  of  the  great  stream  of  tendency ;  tokens  of 
the  everlasting  effort  to  produce,  which  even  in  its 
worst  estate  the  soul  betrays.  Art  has  not  come  to 
its  maturity  if  it  do  not  put  itself  abreast  with  the 
most  potent  influences  of  the  world,  if  it  is  not  prac 
tical  and  moral,  if  it  do  not  stand  in  connection  with 
the  conscience,  if  it  do  not  make  the  poor  and  uncul 
tivated  feel  that  it  addresses  them  with  a  voice  of 
lofty  cheer.  There  is  higher  work  for  Art  than  the 
arts.  They  are  abortive  births  of  an  imperfect  or 
vitiated  instinct.  Art  is  the  need  to  create ;  but  in 
its  essence,  immense  and  universal,  it  is  impatient  of 
working  with  lame  or  tired  hands,  and  of  making 
cripples  and  monsters,  such  as  all  pictures  and  statues 


ART.  265 

are.  Nothing  less  than  the  creation  of  man  and 
nature  is  its  end.  A  man  should  find  in  it  an  outlet 
for  his  whole  energy.  He  may  paint  and  carve  only 
as  long  as  he  can  do  that.  Art  should  exhilarate, 
and  throw  down  the  walls  of  circumstance  on  every 
side,  awakening  in  the  beholder  the  same  sense  of 
universal  relation  and  power  which  the  work  evinced 
in  the  artist,  and  its  highest  effect  is  to  make  new 
artists. 

Already  History  is  old  enough  to  witness  the  old 
age  and  disappearance  of  particular  arts.  The  art  of 
sculpture  is  long  ago  perished  to  any  real  effect.  It 
was  originally  an  useful  art,  a  mode  of  writing,  a  sav 
age's  record  of  gratitude  or  devotion,  and  among  a 
people  possessed  of  a  wonderful  perception  of  form 
this  childish  carving  was  refined  to  the  utmost  splen 
dor  of  effect.  But  it  is  the  game  of  a  rude  and  youth 
ful  people,  and  not  the  manly  labor  of  a  wise  and 
spiritual  nation.  Under  an  oak-tree  loaded  with 
leaves  and  nuts,  under  a  sky  full  of  eternal  eyes,  I 
stand  in  a  thoroughfare.  Cut  in  the  works  of  our 
plastic  arts  and  especially  of  sculpture,  creation  is 
driven  into  a  corner.  I  cannot  hide  from  myself  that 
there  is  a  certain  appearance  of  paltriness,  as  of  toys 
and  the  trumpery  of  a  theatre,  in  sculpture.  Nature 
transcends  all  our  moods  of  thought,  and  its  secret 
we  do  not  yet  find.  But  the  gallery  stands  at  the 
mercy  of  our  moods,  and  there  is  a  moment  when  it 
becomes  frivolous.  I  do  not  wonder  that  Newton, 
with  an  attention  habitually  engaged  on  the  paths  of 
planets  and  suns,  should  have  wondered  what  the 
Earl  of  Pembroke  found  to  admire  in  "  stone  dolls." 


266  ART. 

Sculpture  may  serve  to  teach  the  pupil  how  deep  is 
the  secret  of  form,  how  purely  the  spirit  can  translate 
its  meanings  into  that  eloquent  dialect.  But  the 
statue  will  look  cold  and  false  before  that  new  activity 
which  needs  to  roll  through  all  things,  and  is  impa 
tient  of  counterfeits  and  things  not  alive.  Picture 
and  sculpture  are  the  celebrations  and  festivities  of 
form.  But  true  art  is  never  fixed,  but  always  flowing. 
The  sweetest  music  is  not  in  the  oratorio,  but  in  the 
human  voice  when  it  speaks  from  its  instant  life  tones 
of  tenderness,  truth,  or  courage.  The  oratorio  has 
already  lost  its  relation^  to  the  morning,  to  the  sun, 
and  the  earth,  but  that  persuading  voice  is  in  tune 
with  these.  All  works  of  art  should  not  be  detached, 
but  extempore  performances.  A  great  man  is  a  new 
statue  in  every  attitude  and  action.  A  beautiful 
woman  is  a  picture  which  drives  all  beholders  nobly 
mad.  Life  may  be  lyric  or  epic,  as  well  as  a  poem  or 
a  romance. 

A  true  announcement  of  the  law  of  creation,  if  a 
man  were  found  worthy  to  declare  it,  would  carry  art 
up  into  the  kingdom  of  nature,  and  destroy  its  sepa 
rate  and  contrasted  existence.  The  fountains  of 
invention  and  beauty  in  modern  society  are  all  but 
dried  up.  A  popular  novel,  a  theatre,  or  a  ballroom 
makes  us  feel  that  we  are  all  paupers  in  the  almshouse 
of  this  world,  without  dignity,  without  skill  or  industry. 
Art  is  as  poor  and  low.  The  old  tragic  Necessity, 
which  lowers  on  the  brows  even  of  the  Venuses  and 
the  Cupids  of  the  antique,  and  furnishes  the  sole 
apology  for  the  intrusion  of  such  anomalous  figures 
into  nature,  —  namely  that  they  were  inevitable  ;  that 


ART.  267 

the  artist  was  drunk  with  a  passion  for  form  which  he 
could  not  resist,  and  which  vented  itself  in  these  fine 
extravagancies,  —  no  longer  dignifies  the  chisel  or  the 
pencil.  But  the  artist  and  the  connoisseur  now  seek 
in  art  the  exhibition  of  their  talent,  or  an  asylum  from 
the  evils  of  life.  Men  are  not  well  pleased  with  the 
figure  they  make  in  their  own  imaginations,  and  they 
flee  to  art,  and  convey  their  better  sense  in  an  ora 
torio,  a  statue,  or  a  picture.  Art  makes  the  same 
effort  which  a  sensual  prosperity  makes ;  namely  to 
detach  the  beautiful  from  the  useful,  to  do  up  the 
work  as  unavoidable,  and,  hating  it,  pass  on  to  enjoy 
ment.  These  solaces  and  compensations,  this  divis 
ion  of  beauty  from  use,  the  laws  of  nature  do  not 
permit.  As  soon  as  beauty  is  sought,  not  from 
religion  and  love  but  for  pleasure,  it  degrades  the 
seeker.  High  beauty  is  no  longer  attainable  by  him 
in  canvas  or  in  stone,  in  sound,  or  in  lyrical  construc 
tion  ;  an  effeminate,  prudent,  sickly  beauty,  which  is 
not  beauty,  is  all  that  can  be  formed ;  for  the  hand 
can  never  execute  any  thing  higher  than  the  character 
can  inspire. 

The  art  that  thus  separates  is  itself  first  separated. 
Art  must  not  be  a  superficial  talent,  but  must  begin 
farther  back  in  man.  Now  men  do  not  see  nature  to 
be  beautiful,  and  they  go  to  make  a  statue  which  shall 
be.  They  abhor  men  as  tasteless,  dull,  and  incon 
vertible,  and  console  themselves  with  color-bags  and 
blocks  of  marble.  They  reject  life  as  prosaic,  and 
create  a  death  which  they  call  poetic.  They  despatch 
the  day's  weary  chores,  and  fly  to  voluptuous  reveries. 
They  eat  and  drink,  that  they  may  afterwards  execute 


268  ART. 

the  ideal.  Thus  is  art  vilified  ;  the  name  conveys  to 
the  mind  its  secondary  and  bad  senses ;  it  stands 
in  the  imagination  as  somewhat  contrary  to  nature, 
and  struck  with  death  from  the  first.  Would  it  not  be 
better  to  begin  higher  up,  —  to  serve  the  ideal  before 
they  eat  and  drink ;  to  serve  the  ideal  in  eating  and 
drinking,  in  drawing  the  breath,  and  in  the  functions 
of  life?  Beauty  must  come  back  to  the  useful  arts, 
and  the  distinction  between  the  fine  and  the  useful 
arts  be  forgotten.  If  history  were  truly  told,  if  life 
were  nobly  spent,  it  would  be  no  longer  easy  or  pos 
sible  to  distinguish  the  one  from  the  other.  In  nature, 
all  is  useful,  all  is  beautiful.  It  is  therefore  beautiful 
because  it  is  alive,  moving,  reproductive ;  it  is  there 
fore  useful  because  it  is  symmetrical  and  fair.  Beauty 
will  not  come  at  the  call  of  a  legislature,  nor  will  it 
repeat  in  England  or  America  its  history  in  Greece. 
It  will  come,  as  always,  unannounced,  and  spring  up 
between  the  feet  of  brave  and  earnest  men.  It  is  in 
vain  that  we  look  for  genius  to  reiterate  its  miracles 
in  the  old  arts ;  it  is  its  instinct  to  find  beauty  and 
holiness  in  new  and  necessary  facts,  in  the  field  and 
roadside,  in  the  shop  and  mill.  Proceeding  from  a 
religious  heart  it  will  raise  to  a  divine  use  the  railroad, 
the  insurance  office,  the  joint-stock  company;  our 
law,  our  primary  assemblies,  our  commerce,  the  gal 
vanic  battery,  the  electric  jar,  the  prism,  and  the 
chemist's  retort ;  in  which  we  seek  now  only  an  eco 
nomical  use.  Is  not  the  selfish  and  even  cruel  aspect 
which  belongs  to  our  great  mechanical  works,  to  mills, 
railways,  and  machinery,  the  effect  of  the  mercenary 
impulses  which  these  works  obey?  When  its  errands 


ART.  269 

are  noble  and  adequate,  a  steamboat  bridging  the 
Atlantic  between  Old  and  New  England  and  arriving 
at  its  ports  with  the  punctuality  of  a  planet,  —  is  a 
step  of  man  into  harmony  with  nature.  The  boat  at 
St.  Petersburg,  which  plies  along  the  Lena  by  mag 
netism,  needs  little  to  make  it  sublime.  When 
science  is  learned  in  love,  and  its  powers  are  wielded 
by  love,  they  will  appear  the  supplements  and  con 
tinuations  of  the  material  creation. 


THE   END. 


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